It Hurts So Bad
by anon462
Summary: (WIP) Losing Spike broke her heart. Being betrayed by her friends broke her. What will it take for her to heal?
1. Default Chapter

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"It Hurts (So Bad) - 1"

When she opened her eyes they felt sticky and crusty, she could tell that she had been crying in her sleep again. but at least she couldn't remember dreaming Without even thinking about it she reached over to the bedside nightstand and picked up the half full pint of whiskey, bringing it to her lips she took a sip to clear the phlegm, then filled her mouth and let the whiskey slowly trickle down her throat burning a path to her stomach.

As the warmth started to spread a thought crossed her mind his lips, his tounge, his taste. She immediately turned the bottle up and drained it down her throat. When the bottle emptied she raised it from her lips and flipped it away from her to crash against the wall, falling to the floor in pieces to lay next to a half dozen other broken bottles on the thin carpet. She laid there in the dark trying not to think about him about anything.

She rolled up on her side, searching the top of the nightstand for another bottle, all gone. She pulled open the drawer, empty. A sob of desperation escaped her lips. Through eyes that barely focused she stared at the luminous numbers on the small clock (9:24). She wondered vaguely if it was AM or PM? Not that it really mattered, except, if it was PM, it might still be Monday and she could go get more to drink. If it was AM, it was Tuesday, Dawn would be coming soon, in a few hours.

She'd run everyone else off, with her temper, hate filled language, and threats. Not always just threats either. She still remembered clearly when she had punched Xander in the jaw and had physically picked him up an thrown him out the doorway into the hall. She had screamed at him that if he ever came back again she would kill him. The satisfaction she had felt when she had hit him had faded away months ago, she couldn't remember how many.

She rolled to the other side of the bed and sat up, swinging her legs out, she sat there for a minute with her feet not quite touching the floor. She reached out with a shaking hand and picked up the pack of cigarettes and lighter. A sad grin of irony spread across her lips. cigarettes; filthy, nasty, smelly, cigarettes But every time she lit one up it reminded her of him. his smell, his taste, him She put a cigarette between her lips and using the lighter lit it up, taking a deep breath, sucking the acrid smoke deep down into her lungs.

She sat there holding the lighter, his playing with it idly, opening it and striking a flame, closing it, opening it and striking a flame, closing it, again and again and again. She'd found it in the alley, where the battle had been fought, it had been covered with blood. his? She had searched the alley from end to end, the lighter was all she had found.

She'd gone into every building up and down the alley, searching, finding nothing. For two days she'd searched, day and night, going over every inch again and again. That was where the others found her. Filthy, crying, searching, searching. That was where she'd found the truth. They had known he was alive and kept it from her. They had all known, except Dawn. They hadn't told Dawn, because they knew she'd have told her. They had wanted to protect her. They had wanted her to get on with her life. They had wanted her to be happy. god, how she'd hated all of them

When she'd found out the truth she'd been so shocked, so hurt, she couldn't even react. Dawn hadn't been as handicapped, she'd slapped Giles so hard she knocked his glasses off his face and when they fell to the ground she stomped on them again and again, shattering the lenses and breaking the frames. Xander had tried to take hold of her to calm her and she had kicked him so hard in the shins he had fallen to the ground in pain. When Willow tried to calm her, Dawn had raised both hands as if she had razor sharp claws and hissed at her like a cat in a rage of fury. She had screamed at them and cursed at them until she drove them down the alley. She had then gone to Buffy and the two of them had held each other, on their knees in the filth of the alley, crying, for hours.

Buffy hadn't said a word to Giles since that day, she couldn't even look at him, fortunately he'd gone back to London. She wasn't sure what she might do to him if she ever did see him again. She'd had dreams of killing him, all of them, too many times to count. Xander had hung around for awhile, coming to see her, trying to explain why they had done what they did, wanting what was best for her. The last time he had said that to her she had exploded on him. She had screamed at him, cursed him, told him in great detail what she thought of him and his years and years of trying to live her life for her. When he lost his temper and told her to "get over it" and had said "he was nothing but a monster, your better off with him dead" she'd lost it and punched him in the jaw. She was certain that she'd broken his jaw, but she didn't know for sure, and didn't really care.

Angel had come to see her too, after he had healed up enough from his injuries. He'd been the only one of his people to survive. Fred, Wesley, Gunn, Spike, they'd all died fighting "the good fight" for Angel. But Angel had survived, somehow. She had listened to him talk, let him explain why he had never called her to tell her Spike had come back to life. He'd told her how Spike had come back as a ghost at first, and he'd thought it would just hurt her to know about it. He had called Giles about it and they had both agreed that telling her would just hurt her.

When Spike had been made corporeal again he'd left the decision about contacting her up to Spike. He told her that Spike had talked about calling her and had talked about going to see her, at first. But after Andrew had come to L.A. and told Spike that she was living in Rome and was happy and getting on with her life, he'd changed his mind. He'd said he didn't want to mess up her life again and just hurt her more. He told her how he and Spike had gone to Rome on business and had seen her out dancing. They had both agreed that she was happy and they would both stay out of her life.

She had listened to everything he had to say, weighing it out, filtering it through the jealousy she knew Angel had felt about her relationship with Spike. She knew, in her heart, that Spike would have always wanted what was best for her. That he would have wanted her to be happy. She also knew that none of them, Angel least of all, would have told Spike about the months of grief and mourning she had gone through trying to deal with Spikes death at the Hellmouth. How she had moved to Rome with Dawn to try to get her life restarted, trying to please Giles and her other friends. How she had dated and laughed and smiled, telling her friends she was happy. How she had cried alone in her bed at night, her face buried in her pillow to muffle her gasps of pain.

When Angel finished telling her why he had done what he had done, she calmly told him that it should have been him who had died in the alley and not Spike. She'd told him that if she ever saw him again she would kill him, without a second thought. He'd left then and she hadn't seen or heard from him since. She didn't care, she didn't care about anything anymore.

She remembered the letter she had received from Andrew, apologizing for not telling her about Spike being alive. In the letter he explained that he had been under orders from Giles not to tell her. How Giles had convinced him that telling her would only hurt her and bring pain back into her life. How the only way for her to be happy was to forget about Spike and make a new life for herself, to move forward, amongst the living. How when Spike and Angel had come to Rome unexpectantly he had lied to them and told them how happy she was with her new lover "The Immortal".

Just thinking about "The Immortal" made her grimace. How could Spike have ever thought that she would have someone like him as her lover? He had been such a pompous ass, so full of himself. The whole "I am "The Immortal"" thing had made her cringe. Any and every conversation they ever had led back to him talking about himself and how "wonderful" he was and how lucky she was to be able to spend time with him because he was such an "important" person. The only reason she had ever gone out with him at all was because he was such a fantastic dancer.

Thinking about dancing with "The Immortal" made her frown as she lit up another cigarette. That is what Spike had seen when he came to Rome and saw them dancing together. The only times she had felt truly alive since Spikes death at the Hellmouth was when she was dancing. When she danced, if the music was just right, her body seemed to become separate from her everyday thoughts and actions. Her body took on a life of it's own as she moved to the music. When she danced she could think of Spike without the overwhelming feelings of loss. When she danced she glowed with her love for him.

That's what Spike had seen when he saw her dancing with "The Immortal". He saw her love shining out for the world to see and had thought that she had forgotten about him and was in love with someone else. He'd thought that she was happy. He'd wanted her to be happy and had walked away without letting her know he was alive.

God damned Angel! God damned Giles! God damned All of Them! the thoughts screamed inside her head. If I'd only known, I would have gone to him! I could have brought him back to Rome or I could have stayed with him! I could have been with him at the end, I could have died with him!!!

She snubbed out the cigarette she was smoking and immediately lit up another. Tears slowly ran down her cheeks, she didn't even try to stop herself from crying anymore. For years she'd hidden her tears from herself and her friends. Now she didn't have any friends and she didn't want to hide them from herself any longer. Every day she cried, sometimes all day long. Every night she cried, sometimes all night long. Even when she drank, she still cried. She didn't care who knew it now. She didn't care about anything anymore.

She snorted at the enormity of the lie. She did care about something, the dreams. Every time she fell to sleep she had the dreams. Every day, every night, whenever she closed her eyes to sleep she dreamed about him. Every time she dreamed she dreamt about arriving at the battle in time to save him. Every day, every night, whenever she closed her eyes she dreamt of saving him. In a hundred ways, a thousand ways, she dreamt of saving him.

She remembered him telling her after she had been ripped out of Heaven and brought back to life that he had dreamt of saving her whenever he closed his eyes. She hadn't understood then the enormity of what he'd been saying. How had he dealt with the pain of it? The only way she had been able to survive the pain was to drink herself into oblivion every day and every night. How had he survived it? She knew from talking to Dawn that he hadn't let himself escape from the pain by drinking. He had made a promise to take care of Dawn and the only way he could do that was by staying sober.

She knew that he had loved her enough to die for her. Would have willingly died in her place to save her. He'd carried his pain within him every day, without any hope of it ever going away, blaming himself for not saving her. Keeping his promise to protect Dawn, dieing inside a little more every day, every night, every time he closed his eyes. But he'd kept his promise. For 147 days he'd kept his promise to her, to keep Dawn safe.

But she hadn't made any promises, because she didn't care about anyone anymore. She still loved Dawn, as much as her shattered heart let her. But she knew that Dawn was alright now and didn't need her to protect her anymore. Dawn was living with Willow and would graduate from high school in a few months. She had already been accepted into UCLA where Willow was enrolled in some kind of Masters Program. She didn't talk to Dawn about Willow very much, she just didn't care enough. She didn't care about anything very much, not anymore.

She did know that Giles and the Counsel were paying for everything. All of Willows and Dawns expenses, hers too actually. They were paying for Willows schooling and would pay for Dawns too when she started UCLA. Dawn had told her several times that they would pay for her schooling, if she wanted to go back to college. But she didn't care about going back to college, or anything else really. Every week Dawn gave her two hundred dollars, that's all that mattered, nothing else.

(12/04)

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	2. It Hurts 2

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It Hurts (So Bad) - 2

When she'd found out where Spike had been living she'd gone there immediately hoping to find something personal of his to keep. But all she found was a pair of worn black jeans, a couple of wrinkled shirts and several black t-shirts, nothing else. The duster wasn't there, he'd probably been wearing it at the battle. There had been some kind of video game player hooked up to the small TV, she'd never turned it on to see what it was. But she had held the controller in her hands for hours and hours, knowing that he had held it in his hands.

There had been one bag of blood in the small refrigerator and a half empty bottle of whiskey in a cabinet. Nothing else, nothing that really showed that Spike had lived there, that this had been his place. his home She'd wandered around the small basement apartment, looking for something. anything Finally, she'd pulled back the blanket on the bed and climbed into it, pulling the blanket up over herself. She'd turned her back to Dawn, and Xander who had driven them to the apartment, and refused to say anything to either of them. She'd stayed in the bed for two days before she got out of it, surrounding herself in the trace scent of Spike.

Dawn had stayed with her the first two days, sleeping on the couch, trying to talk to her, trying to get her to talk. Xander had left after a few hours the first day. She'd heard them talking to her and each other that first day while she laid there in Spikes bed, but had refused to respond to either of them. She had heard Xander bitching and complaining to Dawn in a whisper about the way she was carrying on over Spike. Dawn had kept telling him to shut-up or leave, finally he did, saying he would be back the next day. It had occurred to her then to wonder why she had ever cared about him or his opinion of her.

When he came back the next day he brought Willow with him. Willow had tried to talk to her also and had sat on the bed to try to touch her and sooth her. She had turned to Willow with such hatred in her eyes that Willow had run from the apartment crying. Xander had become very upset and left to take Willow back to the hotel where they were staying and to sooth her down. She hadn't cared that Xander got upset or that Willow had cried. She hadn't cared, she didn't care about anything anymore.

It had been the dreams that finally drove her from the bed in the middle of the night. She got as far as the whiskey bottle, which she had drained in just a few minutes, then climbed back into the bed to pass out. Dawn had been sleeping on the couch and had never even known she'd been up. When she woke up again she found herself alone, Dawn had left a note saying she had gone to get something to eat and would be back in a few minutes. She found her way out of the building and walked down the street to a liquor store where she bought two bottles of whiskey and her first pack of cigarettes.

When Dawn got back from dinner, with Xander, they found her drinking from a whiskey bottle and choking on a burning cigarette. When they tried to take the whiskey and the cigarettes from her she got angry and yelled at both of them, telling them to get out, that she didn't want or need either of them around. Dawn had started crying and Xander had gotten upset again. She didn't care, she didn't care about anything anymore.

Dawn had come back every day to spend time with her. She brought food every day, sandwiches, pizzas and other things she thought Buffy might eat. She also brought soap and shampoo, tooth paste and a brush, combs and brushes, moisturizer and makeup, wash cloths and towels, bras and panties, clean cloths. Everything and anything she could think of to get her out of bed and motivate her to take care of herself.

Every day more empty whiskey bottles had accumulated and the ashtray had long since overflowed. It was the realization that she could no longer smell the scent of Spike in the bed that finally drove her to take a shower and clean herself up. Her own grunginess had overwhelmed any trace of Spike that the bed had contained previously. She then started sleeping with his cloths, wrapped in a pillow case to protect them from her tears.

She'd started talking to Dawn, a little more each day, but wouldn't say a word to anyone if Xander or Willow came into the apartment. Willow cried every time she came to the apartment and finally stopped coming after two weeks. She didn't care that Willow stopped coming. She didn't care about anything anymore.

It was right after that Angel had shown up to talk to her. Two days later a large box of personal items from Rome arrived with the letter from Andrew. Dawn was forced by circumstances to start attending summer school to straighten out her academic situation. Fortunately her advanced classes in Rome carried over and she was going to be in good shape to start her senior year in high school. That meant that for the most part she was left alone during the night and day. Dawn would come over after school in the afternoon, talk to her about her day and make sure she ate something, then leave in the evening.

Xander was picking Dawn up from school and bringing her to the apartment. Some days he would just drop her off and come back for her later in the evening. Occasionally he would come in when he was dropping Dawn off or come early when he was picking her up and would try to talk. She still didn't talk to him, but she didn't totally ignore him either, and she didn't stop talking to Dawn just because he was in the room anymore.

That's what finally led up to the explosion between them. Because she wasn't going silent when he came into the room and wasn't totally ignoring him anymore, some how he got it into his head that she was interested in what he had to say. He started explaining in a condescending way why he, Willow and Giles had not told her that Spike was alive. He explained that they were doing it for her own good and had only been trying to protect her from doing something foolish again. Dawn had sat there in horror listening to him shoot his mouth off.

When she had finally had enough she unloaded on him and ripped him open in no uncertain terms. When he snapped back and told her that he was "glad" Spike was dead and that "he was nothing but a monster" and that she was "better off now that he was dead", she punched him in the jaw, dragged him across the floor and threw him out into the hallway. She had warned him then that if he ever came back again she would kill him.

Dawn had been furious with Xander but had been forced to leave with him. He was in no shape to drive and she needed to take him to a hospital to make sure he was alright. When they got to the hospital she took great pleasure telling the doctor in the ER that Xander had been punched by a little girl half his size for shooting his mouth off. The doctor had wired his jaw shut, gave him some pain pills and told him to see his regular doctor as soon as possible. The doctor hadn't know what to make of the situation and didn't really care what had happened or why, but he was quite certain that there was a lot more to the story than he had been told. He was also certain that if it was a little girl who had hit his patient she must have had martial arts training or something. Either that or the guy had a glass jaw.

Dawn wasn't able to come see Buffy for several days. When she did come back she explained to Buffy that when she got back to the hotel with Xander she had told Willow what had happened and that Xander had to leave, she couldn't stand to look at him anymore. Willow had excepted Dawn decision and had called Giles. Airline tickets were purchased and Xander flew back to London to work for the Counsel. Giles had also told Willow to find a nice apartment for her and Dawn to live in and to see about getting enrolled back in school. Dawn had spent the day before getting her drivers license and insurance. She was driving a car that Willow had leased for her and would now be able to come see Buffy every day without any problems.

Buffy had listened to what Dawn had to say and was relieved that Xander was gone. She was also glad that Dawn had her school situation under control and that with a car she had the independence to do whatever she wanted to do. It also reassured her that Dawn didn't really need her anymore.

As the summer passed she drank more and more every day to drown out the dreams. Every day and every night, whenever she closed her eyes to sleep the dreams came and the pain of loss and her failure to save Spike woke her to tears and screams in the dark. She never left the apartment, except at night to go to the liquor store. She started smoking more and more, eating less and less. She lost almost twenty-five pounds and looked like one of those people she'd seen pictures of on TV, those people who died in some kind of camp during a war a long time ago. Her skin had become pail and pasty looking, her hair had become dirty, limp and drab. Every day when Dawn came over she begged Buffy to eat, and every day she drank more, smoked more, passed out more, and ate less.

When high school was ready to resume Willow made her first visit to see Buffy in two months. There were papers that needed to be signed and arrangements that needed to be agreed to before classes started. Dawn had mentioned how badly Buffy had been doing over the summer, but Willow wasn't prepared for what she saw in front of her. Buffy was a small woman and her normal weight was probably about a hundred pounds, although a hundred and ten pounds would probably have been more healthy. What Willow saw was a skin and bones caricature of the Buffy she had known for eight years. At the most Buffy weighed eighty pounds, maybe less. Her eyes were sunken into her head with dark rings around them. Buffy was twenty-three years old and looked like a sickly forty or older.

Willow had immediately told Buffy that she was going to have to go into a hospital for treatment. Buffy had looked at her with cold burning eyes and had mumbled out a reply that Willow was still trying to live her life for her instead of living her own. With tears in her eyes but determination on her face Willow had informed her that she was either going to start eating and taking better care of herself or she was going to be forced into a hospital for treatment. Buffy had told her in reply that she would hurt anyone who tried to force her into a hospital. Willow faced her down by stating that if she hurt anyone the police would become involved and that she would be locked up in a psychiatric hospital. Willow stated flatly that she would not let Buffy starve herself to death.

It hadn't been the threat of the police or even being locked up that had made Buffy hold her tongue. It had been the threat of being taken away from the apartment, away from Spike that had scared her. That and the thought that she wouldn't have any alcohol to numb her mind and stop the dreams when she closed her eyes.

An agreement had been made. Buffy would start eating and taking better care of herself. Dawn would report to Willow if she didn't eat and start gaining some weight. Willow would stay out of her life and leave her alone, unless there was an emergency concerning Dawn. Willow had also stipulated that she had the right to stop by to be sure that Dawn wasn't covering for her like she had apparently been doing all summer. Buffy had agreed and then refused to speak to Willow anymore.

She had continued to drink and to smoke, but had started eating more of the food that Dawn brought to her. I took two months for her to gain back ten pounds. Her eyes had become less sunken, but the dark circles around them had remained. She had become less and less communicative around Dawn and in November she had told Dawn that she didn't want her to come around so much anymore, that she was getting on her nerves. Dawn had cried for two days at the further rejection she was receiving from Buffy, but excepted it because she felt she had no other choice. The new arrangement allowed Dawn to come see her on Tuesday afternoons when she got out of class and on Friday evenings.

Buffy had thought about what she was doing to Dawn by rejecting her visits and limiting the number of times a week Dawn could see her. She also knew, or at least believed, that Dawn needed to get on with her own life and to not worry so much about her. It was better to start making the break now and not waiting until the next summer when Dawn would be eighteen and going away to some college. Now was better, for both of them.

(12/04)

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	3. It Hurts 3

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It Hurts (So Bad) - 3

It was a week or so before Christmas when she saw him the first time. He was like a vague misty shadow standing at the foot of her bed watching her. She blinked her eyes repeatedly and rubbed them to clear the sleep from them. By the time she finished he was gone. She picked up the bottle of whiskey on the nightstand and took a long drink and went back to sleep. The dreams were stronger that night and she woke up screaming his name several times. Each time she woke she drank more of the whiskey to put her back to sleep and to blot out the dreams.

Two or three nights later she saw him again. This time he was a little clearer, a little less misty. She knew she was hallucinating but she didn't care. She laid there in her bed watching him watching her as she continued to drink from a bottle of whiskey. Somewhere halfway through the bottle he faded away and she finished the bottle with tears running down her face.

Dawn came over on Christmas morning with several presents for her. Willow had come along also and had brought a small package. Buffy ignored her and her present until she left to wait outside in the car. Buffy hadn't bought anything for Dawn, she never went anywhere to shop, except the liquor store. Dawn didn't comment on the lack of presents from Buffy and tried to smile and be happy for both of them. When she left two hours after arriving she was stretched to her limit from the stress. When she got into the car with Willow she cried for over a half hour before she could get herself back under control.

Buffy had let the present from Willow sit on the coffee table all day without touching it. In the evening she had finally picked it up and opened it. Inside was a picture in a silver frame of Buffy sitting in a chair with Xander kneeling next to her on one side, Willow sitting in a chair next to her on the other side and Giles standing behind her. She remembered the picture and when it had been taken. It was in the library at Sunnydale High School during her first year in Sunnydale. She was smiling at the camera as she was surrounded by her two best friends and the man she was growing to think of as a substitute father. With tears running down her cheeks she wrapped the paper back around the picture and carried it over to the small dresser near her bed. She opened the bottom drawer and placed the picture inside and pulled a sweater over the package to hide it from view. Tears continued to run down her face as she opened a fresh bottle of whiskey and drank half of it without pausing.

A little after eleven she ran out of whiskey and knew she wouldn't make it through the night without more to drink. The picture from Willow had struck deeply inside her and had brought feelings to the surface she had been trying for months to bury away. Feelings of friendship, love and trust. Feelings of loss, anger and betrayal. She checked her pocket to make sure she had some money and left the apartment. She weaved her way down the street toward the liquor store, using the walls of buildings to steady her as she headed toward the blinking neon lights.

Once in the store she went immediately to the counter and asked for two pint bottles of a fairly cheap whisky and for three packs of generic brand cigarettes. She had decided months ago that it didn't make sense to buy expensive whiskey or cigarettes. She didn't really like the taste of either one so what was the point of paying more for something else. The man behind the counter was use to seeing her come in at night and placed both bottles of whisky and the cigarettes in a paper bag and handed it to her along with her change. He didn't try to talk to her, even though it was Christmas, he knew she wouldn't respond, she never had before.

As she walked back toward her apartment a young man stepped out of an alley and started following her. He was a local neighborhood predator, a thug and thief who usually assaulted elderly women and snatched their purses or smashed out car windows to steal whatever was left inside by the foolish owners. He had been drinking himself that night and seeing her coming out of the liquor store had decided that she was the perfect victim. He came up behind her quietly and made a grab for the bag in her hand. Buffy was intoxicated and responded without even thinking. She intercepted the reaching hand and with a twist snapped his wrist. She didn't even take a look at his face. She released his hand and continued on her way toward her apartment. The young man had dropped to his knees from the pain in his broken wrist and peed in his pants. When he was finally able to get back onto his feet he started walking toward the nearest hospital which was several miles away. Each step sent waves of pain through his wrist and arm and with each step he swore to himself that he would get even with the bitch for what she had done to him.

When she got back to her apartment it was almost midnight, ten more minutes more or less. She opened one of the packs of cigarettes and lit up one. With the cigarette hanging from her lips she opened one of the pints of whiskey. She took a drag off of the cigarette and removing it from her lips took a swallow of the whiskey. As the whiskey burned it's way down her throat she let the smoke out of her lungs. The dual burning sensation made her eyes water and a sigh escaped her lips. She sat back on her bed, leaning against the headboard and took another drag off the cigarette and another drink of whiskey. A twisted smile was on her lips.

At midnight, or a few minutes after, she saw him again. He seemed to be at a distance walking toward her. She knew even in her intoxicated state that what she was seeing wasn't real. The distance was much to far away for him to be real and inside her apartment. She took another drink and watched her hallucination draw nearer. She watched the roll of his walk and a tightness built up in her chest.

His black leather duster moved with him as he walked, seeming to have a life of it's own. His bleached blonde hair was combed back and smooth, undisturbed. A cigarette seemed to be hanging from his lips. As he drew nearer she watched him draw on the cigarette and the tip glowed. His hands were down inside his coat pockets. The tightness in her chest increased.

She had seen him just like this a hundred and more times. Walking down a street or through a cemetery, heading toward her to join her on a patrol. As he drew ever nearer she could see him looking in her direction with that smirky smile of his on his lips. He stopped at the foot of the bed and took another drag off his cigarette, the tip glowed. He tilted his head a little to one side and she could see his lips move as he spoke. There wasn't any sound, hallucination couldn't really talk or make sounds unless you were crazy, but she could read his lips she was so familiar with the words. "I've been looking for you, Luv." Buffy turned the bottle in her hand up and chugged until it was empty. She flipped it over against the wall where it broke and fell to the floor. With tears running from her eyes she whispered back "I've been looking for you too". She closed her eyes and let the whiskey take her into a dreamless sleep.

She started seeing him every night after that. Sometimes at a distance, sometimes up close. Sometimes he seemed to be doing things or talking to other people she couldn't see. Other times he seemed to be focused on her and speaking to her. She couldn't hear what he was saying of course, but sometimes she could read the words on his lips. Twice as she read his lips she remembered the conversation that they'd had and mouthed her side of the conversation back to him. The pain in her chest took her breath away as she spoke the words from a conversation years gone past. She also realized that the slower she drank the longer the hallucinations seemed to last.

When Dawn came over two days before the New Year she noticed the broken bottles on the floor and that Buffy was already drunk in the middle of the afternoon. Buffy had a glazed and unfocused look in her eyes as if she was looking off to a distant place. Dawn tried to take away the bottle of whiskey she was holding but she refused to give it up. Dawn tried to talk to her but couldn't get through her drunken haze. When Dawn finally left Buffy didn't even notice. Her mind was focused on Spike as he moved around before her.

On the day after New Years Day, Dawn came over to see Buffy again, this time earlier than usual. Buffy was already drinking but hadn't reached a state of complete drunkenness yet. As Dawn talked to her and she sometimes responded, Dawn became aware that Buffy was staring off into a distance at times and at other times she acted as if she were watching someone or something across the room. As she sat there quietly watching Buffy she saw that her lips were moving as if she were talking to someone. Leaning closer she heard Buffy whisper "Spike" and a few moments later whisper something else she couldn't make out. But she could see a soft sad smile spread across her lips. Dawn hadn't seen Buffy smile for any reason for such a long time that the smile came as more of a shock than the fact she was apparently talking to Spike in her drunken state of mind.

Dawn knew that Buffy's heart had been broken when Spike had died at the Hellmouth. She had also come to realize that when Buffy had learned that Spike had come back to life and had not contacted her before he died again her heart had been shattered. Dawn sat there watching Buffy whisper words to Spike as she smiled off into the distance, tears were running from her eyes. When Dawn couldn't take it anymore she stood up from where she was sitting and started to leave. Buffy became aware of her movement and focused in on her. Before she could get to the door Buffy reached out toward her and asked for some money. Dawn opened her purse reluctantly and pulled ten twenty dollar bills out and set them on the nightstand by the bed. Buffy looked at her with a vacant gaze and nodded her head as if in gratitude and then stared off into the distance again and started whispering to herself. Dawn hurried from the apartment and out to her car before she broke down and started crying.

(12/04)

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	4. It Hurts 4

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It Hurts (So Bad) - 4

On a night a couple of weeks after New Years Buffy was out of whiskey and cigarettes again. She was completely intoxicated but not enough to get her through the night. Also the idea of waking up in the morning and not having anything to drink terrified her. She stumbled her way down the street to the liquor store and checking her money bought four pints of whiskey and five packs of cigarettes. As she worked her way down the street the same young thief that had attacked her at Christmas stepped out of the alley behind her. This time he'd come prepared and had a two foot long piece of pipe in one hand.

Fortunately for Buffy, and unfortunately for the young thief, he was carrying the pipe in his left hand. When he had tried to rob Buffy at Christmas she had snapped his right wrist. Being right handed, and not all that coordinated for a thief that made his way in the world doing smash and grabs and mugging old ladies, when he swung the pipe at Buffy he missed her head completely and brought the pipe down on her shoulder snapping her collar bone causing her to drop her bag.

He'd heard something snap and assumed that he had disabled her even though she didn't move or fall. As he raised the pipe to strike again Buffy did a drunken half spin and kicking out with her right foot she connected with his left knee and shattered it. She hadn't really been aiming at his knee and had hit it by pure chance. As she stumbled to regain her balance she struck out with her right fist and punched him in the chest knocking him back against the brick wall of a building where he struck his head and was knocked unconscious and fell to the ground knees first, doing even more damage to the already shattered knee.

Buffy stood there weaving, trying to find her balance again. In her drunken state it took her a dozen seconds or more to realize that her attacker was unconscious on the ground. She looked around for her bag of whiskey and cigarettes and saw it laying on the ground. She reached for it with her left hand and the sharp pain caused by the broken collar bone caused her to gasp and the world seemed to turn red for a moment and then white. She realized then for the first time that she had been injured. She knelt down and picked the bag up with her right hand. As she started to lift the bag it disintegrated spilling the bottles of whiskey and cigarettes out onto the side walk.

One of the bottles had broken and ruined the paper bag. Slowly and with great care she picked up the five packs of whiskey covered cigarettes and stuffed them down her blouse. She then picked up the unbroken bottles of whiskey and cradled them in her injured arm. When she stood back up the pain in her left arm and shoulder almost made her drop the bottles of whiskey. Using her right hand and arm now she took a tighter grip on the bottles. When she realized again that one of the bottles had broken she became pissed off at her attacker and not even thinking about it she kicked him in the face and broke his jaw. She then slowly turned and headed for her apartment again, being very careful not to drop another bottle of whiskey.

A half hour later as a patrol car came down the street the policeman driving it noticed the man laying on the sidewalk. He got out of the patrol car and checked to see if the man was alive. He then called in for an ambulance and requested a detective come to the site. There was something definitely funny about the crime scene. The officer recognized the unconscious man immediately and knew he was a mugger and thief who preyed upon the weak and elderly in the neighborhood. He had also noticed the piece of pipe on the ground, the torn paper bag, the broken whiskey bottle and the large wet stain of whiskey on the sidewalk. The officer didn't want to jump to any quick conclusions but his first thoughts were that the scumbag on the ground had obviously jumped the wrong person and they had literally handed him his head.

When she got back inside her apartment Buffy was shaking from the shock of her injury. Carefully she let the bottles of whiskey slip from the cradle of her injured arm onto the mattress of her bed. She pulled her blouse out of her waist band and let the packs of cigarettes fall to the bed. Every movement of the arm or shoulder seemed to make the broken ends of her collar bone rub against each other sending sharp lightening bolts of pain through her shoulder and down her arm. Sweat was running down her face and at the same time she felt cold and clammy. Buffy knew that she should do something to tend to her injury but didn't know what to do. She'd never had this kind of injury before, or ever had to deal with one this bad all alone.

Trying to puzzle out how to go about tending her injury Buffy turned around and sat down on the edge of her bed. She half sat on one of the bottles of whiskey and realizing it was there pulled it out from under her. She put the bottle into her left hand, which she had been holding cradled up against her stomach and using the right hand twisted the cap off the bottle. Taking the bottle back into her right hand she raised it up to her lips and drank deeply. Moving the right arm and shoulder and tilting her head back to drink made her left shoulder move, sending lances of pain through her left shoulder and arm. Buffy continued to drink until half the bottle was gone and tears from the pain were running down her face.

As she lowered the bottle from her lips more pain radiated out through her. The fresh whiskey in her stomach started to warm her making some of the cold clammy feeling dissipate. As long as she didn't move at all the pain didn't seem so bad, but any movement made the pain radiate out from the broken bones. Buffy sat there on the edge of her bed not knowing what to do to help herself.

As she stared out across the room she saw him coming toward her. Like times before he seemed to be coming from some distant place, but this time he seemed in a hurry and was heading directly toward her. When he finally stopped he seemed to be only a few feet away from her, almost close enough to reach out and touch. He was bending forward a little and as he stared at her she could see that his eyebrows and forehead were bunched up as if he were studying something or worried about something or concerned about something. When he lifted his gaze from whatever he was looking at he turned his head up and looked directly into her eyes.

His cold blue eyes were staring directly into hers. noooo … not cold …. warm Spikes warm blue eyes were staring directly into hers. Buffy felt her heart clench and her whole body went rigid, she couldn't catch her breath, she couldn't breath. Then he smiled at her. Her whole body seemed to relax under the spell of his smile, she could breath again.

As Buffy stared into Spikes eyes she remembered the many times he had looked at her in just that way, with warmth and love shining out at her. She also remembered how she had never been able to accept the warmth or the love that he had given her, not until it was to late. To late for both of them. Tears started running from her eyes, she started gasping for breath again, waves of pain spread through her body and not just from her injured shoulder. It was the pain of a broken heart, the pain of a love she hadn't recognized for what it truly was until just moments before she lost it. It was the pain of an empty place inside her that echoed with a longing that could never be filled.

((Need to fix that, Luv))

When she heard those words she froze. what? She pushed the bottle she was still holding between her legs and raising her right hand, through the pain of moving her shoulders, she wiped at the tears flowing from her eyes. "What" she asked out loud?  
Spike was still standing in front of her, still smiling at her, the warmth of his eyes was still directed at her. As she watched he licked his lips, she could see the moisture on them, and smiled an even bigger smile.

((Said ya need to fix that, Luv, before ya hurt yourself even more))

"H …. How" Buffy stammered out?

((Don't know, Pet. But we'll suss it out))

"No. No, not what I mean" Buffy said in a scared whisper of a voice. "Am I crazy now?"

Spike squatted down on the balls of his feet, his duster flaring around him, he rested his forearms on his knees, he tilted his head a little to the left, his eyes seemed to sparkle, and smile up at her.

((Not so anyone would notice, Luv))

"Are you sure" Buffy asked, her voice was still a whisper and quivered?

((Yeah, I'm sure. Hundred an twenty years with Dru, I know what crazy is))

"Then, how" she asked, still in a small whisper?

((Don't know. Been trying for awhile, couldn't do it. Maybe has to do with need, you needing me now, that is))

"Spi… Spike" Buffy stammered out, her voice hoarse, a little louder than before, but still shaking. "I know you didn't believe me before, when I said it, but I did, I did mean it. Spike, … I love you!" With tears running down her face and her breath catching in her throat she said "Please! Please Spike! Please believe me! I love you Spike! I love you!" Buffy broke down and great sobs wracked her whole body. She shook and trembled all over, tears ran from her eyes and a look of unbearable anguish was on her face. "Please! Please believe me! Please! Please!" she said in a low pain filled voice between sobs.

((I believe you, Luv. Couldn't be here if you didn't))

Buffy raised her head at these words and looked at Spike kneeling in front of her. He reached out with his right hand toward her face, tears for her pain were in his eyes, his hand stopped just short of touching her cheek, as if he wanted to wipe away her tears, then he drew it back slowly.

((I love you Buffy, until the end of the world, and beyond. I'll always love you))

With every sob she made, with every choked breath she took, the pain in her left shoulder and arm increased. She could feel the ends of the broken bone rubbing against each other. Slowly, but with determination she got her breathing under control. When she was finally breathing close to normal and the uncontrolled crying had stopped, she reached with her right hand and lifted the bottle she had been holding between her legs up to her lips and swallowed down about half of what remained in it. She then sat there resting, letting the alcohol spread through her body, warming her, easing the pain. After a few minutes she raised the bottle to her lips again and drank till the bottle was empty.

With the pain in her shoulder and arm lancing through her while she was crying and sobbing the vision of Spike had slowly faded away. Getting herself under control to ease the pain and finishing the bottle of whiskey seemed to be bringing him back, he was still a little transparent and she couldn't hear him anymore. She fumbled around on the bed looking for another bottle of whisky to open. Instead her fingers brushed across one of the packs of cigarettes. Careful not to move quickly she opened the pack and withdrawing a cigarette placed it between her lips, her hands were shaking. She had to stand to get to the lighter in her pocket, but she did it slowly so that she didn't jar her shoulder to much. Once she had it lit she took a deep drag off it and filled her lungs feeling it burn inside her. She turned looking for the other bottles of whiskey and found them on the bed, they had been behind her all along. She was reaching to pick up another bottle to open it when she heard him again.

((That's enough for now, Pet. We need to do something about that shoulder))

Spike was standing next to her and seemed solid enough to touch. But she didn't dare. She knew inside her head that he was an hallucination and wasn't real, but having him with her, even if he was an hallucination, was the first spark of joy she had felt in forever. Trying to touch him and not being able to would be to painful and would just verify what she already knew, she was going crazy.

((Thought we already went over that Luv. Your not crazy, little drunk maybe, but not crazy.))

"A little" Buffy mumbles out around the cigarette between her lips?

((Yeah, well more than a little, maybe. That's alright for now, you need it for the pain anyway. But ya need to do something about that shoulder so ya don't hurt it anymore))

"What" Buffy said? "Can you fix it?"

((No Luv, can't touch you, wish I could. Maybe someday, sometime))

"Then what" Buffy asked? "Sort'a one hand clapping here."

((Call the Bit, tell her you need her))

Buffy hesitated, her indecision was plain on her face. "If I call, if she comes, will you go away again?"

((Don't know Luv, maybe, maybe not. She won't see me either way))

"Are you a ghost again, like before" Buffy asked hurriedly. "Will you be made real again?"

((No, I don't think I'm a ghost, doesn't feel the same. Don't know the answer to the second part. But I don't feel dead, ah, un-dead, or whatever. I don't know what I mean Luv, but I feel something. I felt you. I could feel you pulling me to you))

A shocked look of horror spread over Buffy's face. "Oh God Spike, were you in Heaven? Did I pull you out of Heaven?"

((No, no Luv, you didn't pull me out of Heaven. Evil vampire, living dead, remember, no Heaven for the likes of me))

"But your not evil, not anymore, you've got a soul and you saved the world" Buffy said immediately in his defense. "You earned a place in Heaven, you could have been in Heaven."

Spike smiled at her and she could feel it, inside, that he was please by what she had just said to him.

((No Luv, I'm pretty sure it wasn't Heaven, it wasn't anything like what you said Heaven was like. But it wasn't Hell either, I've had a taste of Hell and it wasn't like that. It was just sort of dark and quiet, but peaceful, sort of calming. Don't really remember doing anything or thinking about anything, just sort'a felt like I was waiting for something))

"Oh" Buffy replied, not really knowing what to say.

((So, you got a phone, to call the Bit?))

"Yeah, in the bathroom" Buffy replied, still feeling hesitant "but I don't know if it works. I turned it off right after Dawn gave it to me."

((It'll work, bet she checks it every time she comes to see you))

Buffy started to shrug her shoulders but the lancing pain stopped her and took her breath away. With the pain Spike started to fade away. As the pain eased he seemed to become less transparent but she couldn't hear him speaking anymore even though his lips were moving. Buffy walked back over to the bed and picked up another bottle of whiskey. She carefully unscrewed the cap and raising the bottle to her lips took a couple of large swallows. She put the cap back on the bottle and set it down on the nightstand.

((Seems like when your in pain it kind of blocks me out a bit))

"Or, I can only see and hear you when I'm shit-faced" Buffy responded as she squinted at Spike.

((Call Bit))

Buffy slowly walked to the bathroom and opened the door. The bathroom was as small as a bathroom could possibly be made. There was a toilet, a washbasin, a shelf hanging on the wall and a three foot by three foot fiberglass cubical that was the shower. An ugly green plastic shower curtain hung over the entry to the shower. On the back of the toilet the cell phone was sitting in the cradle of it's charger. A little red light on the charger indicated the phone was fully charged. Buffy picked up the phone and walked out of the bathroom as she turned it on.

When she got back out into the main room she realized she didn't know what to do. "I don't know the number. I don't know how to call her" Buffy said as a wave of guilt passed through her. She'd been living in this apartment for eight months and the phone was one of the first things Dawn had bought and put in the apartment for Buffy to have in case she needed it. In all that time she had never used the phone or called Dawn, not once.

((Sure you do. It's got a memory dial right. You can bet that the first number on Dawns phone is your number. If she gave you the phone the first number will be hers))

Buffy wasn't as sure of that as Spike seemed to be but decided to try it anyway. If the person who answered the phone wasn't Dawn she could always hang up. She pressed the Power On key, then the Memory key and then the One key. She heard the phone dialing as she raised it to her ear. She heard it ring once, and then a second time. Before the phone could ring a third time she heard Dawns excited voice. "Buffy! Buffy is that you?"

Buffy hesitated for a moment, not knowing what to say. When she saw Spike tilting his head as he stared at her, she finally spoke. "Dawn, it's me. I need you. I got hurt."

"Buffy, your hurt, are you bleeding, do you need an ambulance, do you need a doctor?" Dawn responded in a tense but controlled voice.

"No bleeding, no ambulance, just need you. The bone in my collar got broke. The ends are kind of grinding together. I don't know how to fix it. Spi… I thought maybe you could help me."

"Buffy, I'll be there in thirty minutes. Sit down and try not to move your shoulder. I'll be there Buffy. I'll be there" Dawn said quickly into the phone and hung up.

(12/04)

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	5. It Hurts 5

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It Hurts (So Bad) - 5

In twenty-four minutes Dawn was coming through the door. She was wearing a pair of jeans, two different shoes, a dark green silk camisole and a jean jacket. She had a large athletic bag slung over her shoulder. Willow came through the door right behind her. She was wearing pink fuzzy bunny slippers, a floor length red flannel nightgown, a coat that was at least six sizes to big for her and an even bigger bag slung from her shoulder.

Buffy hadn't been expecting Willow to come with Dawn, but then again she hadn't really thought about it. They both rushed to the bed where Buffy was sitting, cradling her left arm in her right hand. They both dropped their bags on the floor and stood in front of her almost as if they were afraid to say or do anything.

Dawn was the first to move, she dropped down on her knees and opened the bag she had carried in with her. She pulled a second smaller bag out of it and opened it, reached inside and withdrew a pair of surgical scissors. She then started cutting Buffy's blouse off of her as quickly as possible. Every cut was made with the intention of causing the least amount of jarring or movement in Buffy shoulder. In less than a minute the blouse was rags laying on the floor.

With the blouse cut off and out of the way they were able to get their first good view of Buffy's shoulder, back, chest and arm. Buffy tried to turn her head to see her injury herself but the shooting pain stopped her. There was a huge and growing dark red mark that ran straight across her shoulder between the shoulder joint and her neck. They could see where the collar bone had been impacted and broken. From the look of the growing red impact area there was probably some muscle damage or at the very least some deep bruising. By morning the entire shoulder would be black and blue.

"Buffy" Dawn asked tentatively, "what happened?"

"I'm not really sure" Buffy told her with a vagueness in her tone of voice "I think someone tried to rob me."

"Rob you" Dawn asked quietly?

"Yeah, he hit me with something, a pipe I think" Buffy responded with a puzzled look on her face. "I think he was going to hit me again, so I kicked him, and then hit him, I think, and then I came home. I was going to try to fix it myself, I didn't want to bother anyone, but I didn't know how." As Buffy finished speaking tears started running down her face. "I 'm sorry I bothered you Dawnie. Spike told me …. I …. I mean, I didn't know who else to call."

"I'm here Buffy" Dawn said calmly, reassuringly, hiding the pain she was feeling at the site of Buffy's injury, and the hopeful joy that she was feeling because Buffy was letting her help her. "You did the right thing, calling me. I'm going to take care of you. We're going to fix you up, make it better. I promise. You just sit still while we get things ready."

Dawn turned to Willow and the two of them started talking quietly, discussing the best way to help Buffy and immobilize her arm and shoulder. While they talked, Buffy raised her head and could see Spike in the background watching her and watching Dawn and Willow. He had a look of deep concentration on his face, as if he were listening to every word Dawn and Willow were saying to each other. She could also see that he was starting to become transparent again. Without even thinking about it she reached over and picked up the bottle of whiskey on the nightstand and started drinking.

Dawn turned back to Buffy when she saw her movement. Her first thought was to stop Buffy from drinking any more of the whiskey, but she bit her tongue and reached out quickly to grab Willows arm and prevent her from saying anything either. As she watched Buffy lift the bottle to her lips to drink and tilt her head back she could actually see the broken collar bone moving under Buffy's skin. The site of the bones moving and the pain it must be causing made Dawns skin crawl and her stomach tie into a knot. But Dawn was determined that she wasn't going to do or say anything that would upset Buffy and make her push Dawn away again.

When the bottle was empty and Buffy lowered it from her lips her eyes were glassy and unfocused. She seemed to be looking off somewhere beyond Dawn, a small sad smile was on her lips. Dawn came back to her, knelt down in front of her and carefully took the empty bottle from her hand, setting it down on the nightstand. Dawn looked up into her eyes as if she was waiting to say or do something.

Trying to focus her eyes and her attention on Dawn, she asked "What?"

"Buffy" Dawn said, still trying to speak in a calm and reassuring way. "We kind of think we should try to clean you up a bit, … before we try to … fix you up. Cause, ah, if we wrap you up first ….. you won't be able to clean up again …. until your better …. healed up I mean. It's probably going to hurt some, maybe a lot, so if you don't want to … it's okay."

Buffy bent her head and looked down at herself. She could see that her arms and hands were filthy and that the bra she was wearing was dirty too. She tried to remember when it was that she last took a shower or changed her cloths, but she couldn't. The shame of Dawn seeing her like this made fresh tears run down from her eyes and made her want to go somewhere and hide.

((Let them help you Luv. They need to help you, take care of you))

Buffy lifted her head and staring out over Dawns head she smiled a little smile at Spike and said in a whispery quiet voice "Okay."

Dawn didn't waste anymore time. She carefully slipped Buffy's shoes off her feet and then with Willows help got her up off the bed to stand. She picked up the scissors again and cut the bra off of Buffy so that she wouldn't have to move her arms or shoulders to remove it. She then ran the scissors down the outside of her pants, from waist to ankle, both sides, cutting the pants away. Then quickly she cut the panties away.

Buffy was standing there in front of them naked, but seemed to be unaware of what they were doing, she was looking past them, focusing on something else. Slowly Dawn and Willow walked her into the bathroom, which became very crowded with the three of them inside. Willow found a towel and spread it out on the floor of the shower, she didn't want Buffy to slip and fall. Dawn stepped back out of the bathroom and while kicking off her shoes took off her jacket. She then stripped off her pants. When she came back into the bathroom she was just wearing her camisole and a matching pair of sleeping shorts.

Dawn turned on the water in the shower to make it warm and then very carefully backed Buffy into the shower stall. Willow lowered the lid on the toilet and sat down to be out of the way. She was holding a washcloth, soap and shampoo in her hands to offer them to Dawn when she needed them. Quickly, but carefully, Dawn washed and scrubbed every inch of Buffy's body to get her clean. She had to wash her hair twice to get it clean and fresh. Several times she had to stop because she could see she was hurting Buffy, but each time Buffy looked out over Dawns head as if she was looking at someone else for encouragement.

Once Dawn had Buffy clean, with the help of Willow, she walked Buffy out of the bathroom to stand in the small kitchen area. Willow kept handing Dawn dry towels until she had wiped Buffy down and had her dry. Dawn pulled one of the two chairs at the small kitchen table out into the middle of the floor and helped Buffy sit down to rest.

All of the movement had caused the pain in Buffy's shoulder and arm to increase significantly, Spike was starting to fade a little and she couldn't hear him anymore. When Dawn saw Buffy looking over at the unopened whisky bottle laying on the bed she didn't hesitate, she hurried over to the bed and picked it up, taking the cap off the bottle as she walked back to Buffy and knelt down in front of her offering her the bottle. Buffy reached out gratefully and taking the bottle in her right hand raised it to her lips and took several large swallows.

It took them nearly a half hour to figure out how to rig a sling for Buffy's arm and wrap elastic bandages around her to hold her left arm and shoulder immobile without being to tight, but at the same time tight enough to do any good. Dawn then helped Buffy put on a pair of panties and one of Spikes old shirts. The shirt was bigger than anything else Buffy had to wear and she seemed to like the idea of wearing it. Dawn worked the good right arm down the sleeve, wrapped the shirt around the other shoulder and buttoned it up most of the way. The shirt covered the sling and elastic bandages and hopefully would help in preventing any movement of the left arm and shoulder.

Walking her slowly over to the bed, Dawn and Willow helped Buffy get into it. They propped her up in the bed with the pillows, half sitting and half laying back. As soon as Buffy was in the bed she started looking over at the little kitchen table where they had set the bottle of whiskey while they wrapped her up and dressed her. Dawn ran over to the bottle and brought it back and handed it to her. Buffy looked at Dawn with gratitude then lifted the bottle to her lips and took two large swallows.

Dawn led Willow away from the bed and started talking quietly to Willow. "Your going to have to go out and get some more stuff for Buffy to drink. That's the last bottle and when it's gone she'll want more."

"Do you really think it's a good idea to keep giving her alcohol to drink" Willow asked in a whisper as she looked over at Buffy taking another drink from her bottle?

"No, actually I don't, but we don't have a choice. She's already got so much in her we can't possibly give her any kind of pain pills. Besides, when that runs out she's going to want more and if we don't have any to give her I guarantee she'll try to get out of bed to get some. That's how she got hurt tonight in the first place, she ran out of booze and went out for more." Dawn told Willow earnestly. "All I'm trying to do right now is keep her in bed, stop her from moving around to much and ease her pain. If it takes more booze to keep her quiet that's what we'll use."

Dawn could see the doubt and reluctance on Willows face. "Look Will, I'd go get it myself, but I'm seventeen. I don't think I'd get very far trying to buy the stuff. The liquor store is right down the street, you can see the sign as soon as you step outside."

"What if it's closed" Willow asked hesitantly. "I don't really like this neighborhood that much at night. I don't want to go alone."

"Will, the store is open all night, people do a lot of drinking in this neighborhood. Take the car and park in front of the door, you'll be safe." Saying this Dawn went over to her jeans still laying on the floor and took her car keys out of the pocket and handed them to Willow. "Just hurry back."

Willow took the keys and left the apartment. Dawn went back over to her jeans and started to put them on when she realized for the first time how wet she was. When she was giving Buffy her shower and cleaning her up she had gotten soaked but hadn't paid any attention because taking care of Buffy was the only thing that mattered. Now that Buffy was in bed and quiet she needed to do something about what she was wearing. She walked over to Buffy's little dresser and started opening drawers to see if she could find a dry pair of panties and a top to put on to replace what she was wearing. As she was going through the drawers she came across the package that Willow had given to Buffy at Christmas. Dawn hadn't known what was in the package at the time and because she had gotten so upset that day she had never thought to ask Willow what she had given Buffy.

When she took the package out of the drawer and unwrapped it she was shocked at how callously insensitive Willow had been to Buffy's feelings. As Dawn looked down at the picture of Buffy, Xander, Willow and Giles her stomach turned into a knot. How could she do that? How could she not know that giving that picture to Buffy would be like stabbing her in the heart? How could she be so mean? How could she be so stupid? Dawn let a sigh of sadness escape and knelt there shaking her head. She wrapped the paper back around the picture and put it back into the drawer and covered it up again.

When she finally found a pair of clean panties and a tank top that would fit her she stripped off her wet things and put them on. She then went over to her jeans and put them on. When she found her shoes she realized for the first time that they were two different shoes. A brief chuckle escaped her as she though about how hurriedly she had dressed in the first place as she was yelling for Willow to hurry up because they had to get to Buffy to help her.

Dawn started to spread her camisole and sleeping shorts out on the kitchen table to dry when she realized that there was water and wet towels laying on the floor and that the bathroom was probably in even a worse mess. She got down on her knees and used the towels to clean up the water on the floor. As she wiped it up where the water had been became the only clean spot on the floor. Dawn told herself then that she was going to have to do something about how dirty this whole apartment was as soon as possible. She then went into the bathroom and using the towels remaining in there she mopped up all the water from the floor and started wiping down the washbasin and the toilet to give them a little cleaning too. This was another room that really needed some scrubbing. She carried all the wet towels back out to the kitchen and dumped them in a pile, she would have to take everything to a laundry to wash them.

Dawn then found the broom and a dustpan and being very quiet walked over to the bed where hopefully Buffy had fallen asleep. When she got there she found that Buffy was still awake but her eyes were unfocused and she was talking to herself. Every once in a while she would raise the bottle of whiskey to her lips and take a large sip or two. Since Buffy seemed to be unaware that Dawn was even in the room, Dawn started sweeping up the broken bottles that were laying on the floor. She had to make four trips to the trash can with full dustpans before she was able to sweep up all the broken glass. Even then she was certain that it wouldn't really be safe to walk on that side of the bed bare foot because there was bound to be little pieces of glass in the carpet that she had missed.

(12/04)

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	6. It Hurts 6

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It Hurts (So Bad) - 6

Dawn had collected all the cut up pieces of Buffy's clothing and put them in the trash and was just putting away the broom and dustpan when she heard a noise at the door. She checked her watch and realized Willow had been gone for over a half hour. She hurried to the door and opened it to see Willow with a large cardboard box in her arms topped off with a stack of junk food items. There were powdered donuts, corn chips, several bags of candy, cupcakes, potato chips, nachos, salsa, bean dip, and a half gallon of ice cream. Dawn grabbed hold of the box and helped Willow carry it over to the kitchen table. When she'd removed all of the things stacked on top of the box she realized that there were ten quart bottles of whisky in the box. Dawn looked up at Willow with a big question in her eyes.

"I didn't know what she likes" Willow exclaimed defensively "and I didn't know what to get, so I bought a couple of bottles of different things. Plus, I got her some munchies. I figured that maybe we could get her to eat something and she use to like all this stuff, in the past I mean."

"Yeah, the munchies were a good idea, anything that doesn't take cooking" Dawn told Willow. "As far as the booze goes, it doesn't really matter, she doesn't really like the taste of any of it anyway."

"I don't understand" Willow said with a totally confused look on her face, "if she doesn't like any of it why does she keep drinking it?"

The stupidity of the question shocked Dawn. What world have you been on for the past eight months? flashed through Dawns mind. "Why do you think she drinks? For the fun of it?" Dawn snapped back angrily. "It's because of the nightmares she has whenever she tries to sleep. It's because her hearts broken and she can't stand the pain. It's because being drunk and numb is the only way she can survive every fucking day that she has to go on living without Spike."

Dawns voice had been getting louder and shriller by the second and when she realized it she stopped talking. She grabbed one of the bottles out of the box and walking over to Buffy unscrewed the cap on it and took it off. When she was next to the bed standing over Buffy she reached down and eased the nearly empty pint bottle out of Buffy's hand and slipped the quart bottle of whiskey into her grasp. Buffy looked up at her with glazed eyes and smiled a small sad smile. She automatically raised the bottle to her lips and took a drink from it. Her eyes went back out of focus and she started mumbling to herself again.

Dawn then walked back over to Willow and taking her by the arm led her out of the apartment and down the hallway. When she was far enough down the hallway to be sure Buffy couldn't hear them talking but close enough to keep an eye on the door, just in case, she let go of Willows arm and turned to confront her. She could see that Willow had a confused look on her face, not understanding why they were out in the hallway.

"Okay Will, I've got to know" Dawn said calmly, but forcefully, as she looked Willow in the eyes. "Are you the most incredibly meanest person in the world, or are you just the most incredibly stupid person in the world?"

Willow took a step back, her face turned very pale and then a bright red. A look of confusion crossed her face, not understanding why Dawn was attacking her. "I, I don't understand wh… what you mean" she stammered out. She then tightened her jaws as she started becoming angry at Dawn.

"Okay, will just go with stupid" Dawn said harshly. "And just to get it out of the way, how in the fucking world could you have EVER given Buffy that picture?"

"Picture? What picture?" Willow asked, sounding confused again.

"The picture you gave her at Christmas. The one with you, Xander, Giles and her, all smiles and happiness, that picture! The one I found in the bottom of Buffy's drawer with the wrapping paper still around it, covered up so she wouldn't have to see it, that picture!"

"Oh, that" Willow said as a tiny smile came to her lips. "I just wanted to give her something to remind her of all of us. To let her know that I've missed her. That I, all of us, still love her and want her to get better, to be happy."

"I see" Dawn said scornfully. "I thought you were just trying to remind her that three of the people she loved most in the world had lied to her, betrayed her and ripped her heart out. I thought you were just trying to push the knife into her heart again just to see if you could make her bleed a little more."

Willow fell back from Dawns anger until she was trapped against the wall. Tears started to form in her eyes, she choked and couldn't catch her breath. "I would ne… never try to hurt Buffy" Willow chocked out. "I love her!"

Dawn spun away from Willow and paced back and forth in front of her. Her anger was radiating off of her in waves. When she finally stopped and turned back to Willow she tried to control herself and her almost overwhelming need to hit someone.

"Willow, when it comes to IQ points and books, you are probably one of the smartest people I've ever met. But when it comes to understanding people and their emotions, you are a total moron!" Dawn had to pause again because she could feel herself getting ready to start screaming. She took several deep breaths to calm down.

"Willow, you have NEVER cared about Buffy's happiness! All you have ever cared about was Buffy making YOU happy. All you have ever done is try to manipulate Buffy into caring about you, to make YOU happy!"

"All you guys, you make me sick. Poor little Willow, so nice, so loving, so needy. So 'I love you Buffy but don't you dare do something I don't approve of Buffy'. Xander bouncing around like a puppy begging for attention, wanting to be loved, but withholding his love if Buffy didn't do what he wanted her to do. And Giles, he's the worst of all of you, loving, caring father figure, pulling Buffy's strings like she's some damned puppet. 'Only want the best for you Buffy', 'You have a sacred duty Buffy', 'You've disappointed me Buffy', 'I can't love you Buffy unless you do what I want Buffy'."

Dawns frustration and anger overwhelmed her. Faster than Willow would have thought possible, Dawn punched the wall next to Willows head and nearly broke through the wall boarding. Willows eyes got big, and scared, at the violence she could feel was ready to explode in front of her.

"For seven fucking years she tied herself up into knots trying to make all of you love her" Dawn ranted as she paced back and forth in front of Willow. "For seven fucking years she did everything she could to protect you, to get your approval, to make all of you happy. She died for you, twice damn it, and what was her reward. She got ripped out of Heaven just so she could come back and face your disapproval again, just so she could make you and Xander happy, again."

"So what happens? The only person in the whole fucking world who loves her totally and completely, a thousand percent, just for herself, no fucking strings attached, he isn't good enough for you guy's. 'He's a vampire Buffy', 'He's evil Buffy', He's a monster Buffy', 'He doesn't have a soul Buffy', We don't approve of him Buffy'. So she twists and turns her feelings for Spike into a big ball of self hate and she hurts him and herself again and again to try to force him away. But he won't go, because he loves her. But she can't love him, oh no, not Buffy. She cant' love anyone unless the three of you tell her it's okay."

Dawn continued to pace back and forth in front of Willow, trying to hold on to her temper, trying not to lose control. Trying to pound some understanding into Willows head without actually having to pound on her head.

"First love, Angel. Vampire with a soul, but he turns evil. 'You have to kill him Buffy', so she does. It ripped her heart out, but she did it. But he comes back, second chance right? Fuck no! 'I want you to be happy Buffy' so I'm going to leave you and rip your heart out again! Oh, goodie good for Angel, he did the right thing, you all approve. He just wants Buffy to be happy, just like the rest of you."

"Then comes Riley. Normal guy, macho man, everybody loves Riley. Xander running around in circles kissing his ass, 'He's the one we like Buffy', 'We approve of him Buffy', 'He's normal Buffy'. Yeah, he's normal, except he worked for an evil government agency and he liked to get suck job's from vampire whores. Yeah he's the normal one alright, and when she finds out about it, he blames her. It's her fault, she doesn't love him enough, he wouldn't have done it if she'd been more normal like him."

"Then right in the middle of Mom being sick and then dying and an evil hell god coming to town, she gets me, the key to all evil. But some fucking monks fucked with her head and made her love me, so now she has to protect me. But what happens next? Giles, her loving Watcher, her surrogate father, tells her she'll have to kill me to save the world. But she can't do that because the monks made her love me. So she kills herself to save me, and to save the world, again."

Dawn continued to pace back and forth in front of Willow getting angrier and angrier. Willow stood terrified against the wall, afraid to move or say anything that might direct Dawns anger toward her. She had never seen Dawn like this before and it terrified her.

"So finally she gets her just reward. She goes to Heaven, she finds peace, she finds love. Then you, you selfish bitch, you rip her out of Heaven and bring her back to hell. 'But we missed you Buffy', 'We love you Buffy', 'We saved you from Hell Buffy', 'Why aren't you grateful Buffy'. Yeah, so the only person she feels comfortable with is a soulless vampire with a chip in his head. He's the only one she can talk to, the only one she can trust with her secrete, that every single day is a living hell for her. Why can't she go to her friends and talk to them about it? She doesn't want to hurt them. Why can't she go to her watcher? Cause he told her she needed to grow up and he went back to England. Why couldn't she talk to me?"

Tears were running down Dawns face at this point, she was totally out of control and didn't care. To much anger and pain and frustration had built up over the past couple of years and she couldn't hold it in any longer.

"Yeah, so she goes to Spike and he tells her he loves her. But she can't except his love, oh no, not Spike. Because her friends don't approve of Spike. 'He's evil', 'He doesn't have a soul', "If he didn't have that chip he'd kill us all', 'You should kill him Buffy'. But she can't kill Spike, because he loves her, because she feels something for him. But she's not suppose to feel something for Spike because her friends don't approve. So she ties herself up into a bigger knot and everyday she becomes more desperate and lost."

"Then she finds out that Spike can hurt her, that the chip doesn't work on her, that she's not a normal human being anymore. Great, how much more fucked up could her life get, she's not human anymore. So she turns to Spike for comfort, but she can't do that no matter how much she wants to, because her friends, the people she loves and needs the most to approve of her won't understand. So everything gets twisted and perverted and they hurt each other again and again. But she knows it's not Spikes fault. She knows he would crawl on his knees through fire for her because he loves her. But she can't except his love, because she's all twisted up inside and she pushes him away again and again until he finally does something he can't live with and runs away and leaves town."

Willow was feeling overwhelmed by Dawns diatribe and her menacing behavior. When Dawn mentioned why Spike had left Sunnydale she jumped on the first thought she had in an effort to defend herself and her feelings toward Spike. "But that just proves what we said Dawnie. Spike didn't love Buffy, he tried to rape her." Unfortunately for Willow her tone of voice was just a little to justifying, to self-satisfied, to smug.

Dawn spun from where she was walking back and forth in front of Willow and slammed both fists into the wall, one on each side of Willows head. She leaned in menacingly until she was nose to nose with Willow. In a harsh and disgusted tone of voice she said "The key word there is 'tried' Willow. He 'tried' to rape Buffy, he 'tried' to force her to admit she felt something for him, he 'tried' to make her love him. When Buffy stopped him and he realized what he had 'tried' to do he couldn't stand himself. He left town, he went to the other side of the world and 'got a soul' so that he would never 'try' to hurt Buffy again, so that he would be worthy of her."

"Remember Tara, Willow" Dawn said cruelly. "The woman you claimed you loved. The woman you murdered a man for, that you almost destroyed the world over because of the pain you were feeling. Do you remember Tara? The woman you 'mind raped' repeatedly. The woman you stole her memories from because you didn't want her to disagree with you. The woman you just wanted to be happy, as long as she was a complacent little cow that did what you wanted her to do and felt what you wanted her to feel and didn't ever disagree with you. The woman that forgave you for doing it once and you turned right around and did it to her again. Remember how you 'mind raped' all of us Willow? Remember what you said? 'You just wanted us all to be happy', isn't that what you said Willow. You just wanted us all to be happy, YOUR WAY."

Dawn pushed herself away from Willow in disgust. Willow collapsed to the floor in a heap and started crying. Her whole body shook as she cried and tried to gasp air into her lungs. Dawn stood back from her and watched her cry. Slowly her anger at Willow dissipated to a low burn, it was still there but at a more controlled level. She still felt that Willow didn't understand about Buffy. How Buffy felt about Spike and why it was eating her up alive. When Dawn folded her arms in front of her while she watched Willow crying she felt something in her jacket pocket, a pencil. An idea came to her.

Dawn reached down to Willow and taking her under the arms lifted her back up onto her feet. Willow was still crying and would have collapsed back to the floor but Dawn wouldn't let her. She turned Willow so that she was facing the wall.

"Your lesson isn't over yet Willow" Dawn said into her ear. "You've always been the good student, taking notes, writing out the assignments. Well you've got one more to do today. Maybe the most important one you've ever had to do. It's time for you to learn to understand about love."

Dawn took the pencil out of her pocket and slipped it into Willows hand. "It's time for the written assignment. It's time to write it on the wall."

Willow turned her face toward Dawn. Her eyes were red from crying, tears still ran down her face, snot was running from her nose, her face was red and blotchy. As she looked at her Dawn could tell that Willow didn't understand what she was suppose to do next.

"Just write on the wall what I tell you to write, Will" Dawn told her. "Just write 'Buffy loves Spike! Buffy will always love Spike! Buffy will love Spike until the end of the world!'." Dawn had to repeat what she wanted Willow to write several times until she had it all written out in a line across the wall. "Okay Will, now you have to write that out a thousand times. Do you understand, a thousand times? Not a hundred. Not five hundred. A thousand times. Every time you write it out, every word, you have to repeat it out loud. If you truly mean what you said, that you love Buffy, your going to do this. Because if you don't I'm going to make sure you never see or talk to her again. Do you understand?"

When Willow nodded her head Dawn let her go and started walking down the hall to the door to Buffy's apartment. When she got there she looked back and saw that Willow was still leaning against the wall crying, but she was writing on the wall and Dawn could hear her saying the words out loud through her tears. Dawn opened the door and entered the apartment leaving Willow in the hall to do her homework.

(12/04)

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	7. It Hurts 7

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It Hurts (So Bad) - 7

Once back in the apartment Dawn felt the anger and tension draining out of her. She felt as if she were going to collapse. Instead she went into the kitchen to get a chair and carried it over to Buffy's bed so that she could sit with her and help her if she needed any help at all. She glanced at her watch and realized for the first time that it was almost four in the morning. It had been a long night already and there were a lot of hours to go before morning.

Thinking about morning made Dawn think about what she was going to do next. There was no way she was going to leave Buffy, not alone. She knew she could take one day off from school, maybe even two, or three. Three would take her up to the weekend, that meant two more days, but on Monday she knew she would have to go back. Would Buffy's slayer powers have healed her up by then? Would she be able to leave Willow alone with Buffy? Did she still trust Willow enough to leave her alone with Buffy?

Dawn didn't know what was going to happen or how things were going to work out, but she knew that Buffy had called her for help and that was the most important thing in the world to her. Buffy needed her and she wasn't going to let her down, not for any reason in the world.

As the hours slipped by Dawn kept watch over Buffy. She had hoped that Buffy would fall asleep and get some rest, but it didn't work out that way. Buffy laid there in the bed, her eyes open and out of focus, looking off into a distant somewhere. Periodically she would raise the whiskey bottle she had her fingers wrapped around up to her lips and take a sip, then let her hand settle back to her side, but never letting go of the bottle.

Dawn watched Buffy's eyes moving around at times as if she was following the movements of someone. At different times her lips would move as if she were talking to someone. It took a couple of hours before she finally figured it out, Buffy was talking to Spike. An hour later after leaning close and listening carefully she realized that Buffy was repeating her half of a conversation that she'd had with Spike a couple of years ago when Dawn had been with them. Dawn was amazed by what she saw happening. Buffy was so drunk that she probably couldn't stand up on her own if her life depended on it. But, even though her words were slurred by the alcohol in her system, she was remembering whole conversations with Spike and speaking her parts of the conversation. With her level of intoxication Buffy should have been unconscious. When Dawn noticed at one point that Buffy was smiling a feeling of overwhelming sadness swept over her as she understood that Buffy was reliving a happy moment with Spike and that the memory of past moments with Spike were the only happy moments Buffy might ever have again.

Dawn was just on the verge of nodding off when she heard a light tap on the door. She checked her watch and it was just past eight. When she opened the door Willow was standing there holding two large coffee's from Starbucks. The smell of the coffee was rich and creamy, with a hint of almond. Dawn knew immediately it was a Moca Almond Latte, her favorite coffee of the month. But instead of taking one of the coffees from Willow she stepped out into the hallway. She walked down the hallway to where Willow had started her written assignment. She read the first line she had dictated to Willow and saw that there were Twenty-four more lines written underneath it in a nice straight column. She could see that there was column after column written down the hallway wall. She started counting the columns and counted forty, one thousand total.

Dawn walked back to Willow who was still standing outside Buffy's door watching her. Dawn could see that Willow had stopped crying some time ago, but her eyes were still red and puffy. She held out her hand and Willow handed her one of the coffee cups. Before taking a sip Dawn asked Willow a question, "Have you figured out what love is yet?"

Willow looked down at the cup she was holding as if she were afraid to meet Dawns eyes. "Yeah, I think so. More than I ever understood before anyway." When Willow finally did look up at Dawns face she had tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry Dawnie."

"It's not me you should be sorry to" Dawn said quietly. She then opened the door to the apartment and let Willow enter ahead of her. Once in the room she lead Willow over to the bed and whispered quietly, "She hasn't slept for a minute all night, not one. Watch her for a few minutes, watch what she's doing. I'll explain it later."

The two of them stood there watching Buffy in her bed, taking an occasional drink from the whisky bottle and seeming to be mumbling to herself. For twenty minutes they watched and sipped their coffees, neither one saying anything to the other. Finally Dawn signaled to Willow and led her over to the small couch and sat down. Willow sat down next to her and looked at her, waiting for Dawn to explain.

Dawn let out a sigh and started speaking quietly, "She's totally drunk, but she's not getting any drunker. She's drinking just enough to maintain a constant state but not get any drunker or passing out. You saw her eyes moving and heard her talking to herself?" Dawn looked to Willow for confirmation. Willow nodded her head yes in agreement.

"She's hallucinating and hearing voices" Dawn said and sighed again. "She thinks she's seeing Spike and she's talking to him. But she's not just babbling. I've caught what she's saying several times, she's replaying old conversations she had with Spike in the past. Do you understand?"

Willow looked at her confused, but interested "No, I don't think I do."

"She's hearing Spike speak his half of a conversation and she's speaking her half of it back to him. She's reliving the past, and sometimes she smiles because she's happy. She even blushed about an hour an a half ago, like Spike said something naughty to her but she liked it anyway. You know how she could get sometimes, a guy say's she's hot or sexy or just pretty and she'd get all flustered even if she liked it."

Willow nodded her head in understanding and agreement. "Yeah, she use to do that all the time back in high school and when she first started getting interested in Riley. She was blushing all the time, well a lot of the time anyway, in the beginning."

"Yeah, that's what I'm worried about. Sweet words from Spike are probably her best memories of him, but there probably weren't all that many of them. At least not nice conversation type memories. Look, Buffy told me a lot those first few months after Spike died at the Hellmouth. She needed to talk and no one else wanted to listen to her talk about Spike. She told me that there was a lot of pain in their relationship, and almost all of it her fault. She knew Spike loved her and because she couldn't admit to him she had feelings for him too she literally drove him crazy."

"That's why, I think, after he tried to rape her and ran away, she didn't stay angry at him, she blamed herself for it happening. She'd go to him and have sex with him to make her feel that she was alive, then she'd beat him up for telling her he loved her. They did a lot of kinky sort'a stuff, mostly because Buffy wanted to punish herself for being with Spike. Anyway, there was a lot of pain and guilt in their relationship. What I'm really worried about is that when the happy nice smiley stuff runs out, is she going to start reliving the painful guilty part of their relationship over again too. Because there was a lot more of that than the happy nice stuff."

Willows eyes had gotten big at the edited version of the Spike and Buffy relationship, Dawn wondered how she would have reacted to the unedited version. That was probably another reason why Buffy had felt that she could never go to Willow to talk about Spike, or to any of the others either. Dawn knew that the only reason Buffy had broken down and told her what she did tell her was because Dawn would come to her in the middle of the night when Buffy was crying and she desperately needed to talk to someone. Dawn also wondered how much Buffy had still edited out when she told Dawn some of the things she and Spike had done together. What Dawn knew was bad enough, anything worse would have been a nightmare.

"So that's what's got me worried right now. That and the fact that she's got a broken collar bone and if she moves around to much she'll keep the ends of the bones from knitting back together again, and the fact that she's maintaining a nearly toxic alcohol blood level."

"I could do a sleep spell on her if you want" Willow said quietly as she was looking over at Buffy. When she felt Dawn jerk away from her she turned to look at Dawn and could see that she was angry, and for once understood why immediately. "No, no, Dawn. White magic, Tara taught it to me, honest. It just helps a person sleep, that's all it does." When Willow saw that Dawn was calming back down she continued. "Tara use to do it for girls at school that had to much coffee or were to stressed out to sleep. She could even use it on herself, make herself go to sleep I mean. If she wanted to take a nap but only had a half hour or something she could put herself to sleep and wake up in a half hour all refreshed. She taught me how to do it, but I could never do it on myself like she could. But I could use it on Buffy and she would sleep for an hour or four hours or however long you want. It wouldn't hurt her and it wouldn't take anything away from her, memories I mean. She would just sleep, that's all."

"Okay Will, sorry I over reacted" Dawn said after letting out a long sigh. "But I don't think it would be a good idea right now. Because right now I think that if anyone tried to stop Buffy from seeing or talking to Spike, even if he is just an hallucination, she'd probably try to wring their necks."

"Oh" Willow sighed as she looked back over at Buffy in her bed and could see she was still talking to herself. "Okay, no neck wring for me please. But I only meant it to help Dawn, honest."

The two of them sat together for another hour, watching Buffy and occasionally saying a few words to each other. Dawns anger at Willow had finally bled off to a tolerable level. She knew that she would always be angry at Willow and Xander and Giles, but at a subsurface level. One she could live with on a day to day level, because she also knew that she would always love the three of them too. Buffy had loved her friends with all her heart and soul. That was why their final betrayal of her had hurt her so badly.

Just before ten Dawn heard Buffy let out a long sigh and when she went over to the bed she could see that Buffy's eyes were closed and that she was sleeping quietly. Dawn thought about trying to take the bottle of whiskey out of Buffy's hand and setting it on the nightstand, but decided not to risk it. Sooner or later Buffy would wake up and want the bottle back. If it was on the nightstand she would have to twist her body around to reach it. Dawn didn't want to risk Buffy doing that and hurting herself. If she dropped the bottle or let it spill in her sleep, so what, there were nine more sitting on the kitchen table.

Since Willow was still in her bunny slippers and nightgown Dawn suggested that she go on home and change and get some rest if she wanted to and come back later in the day. Willow immediately said it wasn't necessary and going over to the big bag she had carried into the apartment when they first arrived, picked it up and carried it over to the couch. When she opened the bag Dawn could see that she had a couple of changes of cloths in the bag. She also had several books and notebooks, a pair of shoes, her all purpose everyday magic supply bag, a calculator, a box of herbal tea, a half dozen CD disks, combs, brushes and hair products, a blow dryer, and a portable CD player. Willow picked out what she needed and took the items into the bathroom with her. Ten minutes later she came out and put her nightgown and bunny slippers into the bag.

Willow then asked Dawn if she needed to go home for anything. Dawn told her that she was fine for the day, but what they really needed was some real food and some coffee. Dawn knew there was a coffee pot around somewhere because she had bought it for Buffy when she first moved into the apartment. The two of them did a search of the cabinets and the one small closet. They found the coffee pot, dirty with moldy coffee grounds still in it. When Buffy ran out of coffee she must have just put the coffee maker away instead of getting more coffee. They also found a scrub bucket, mop and some sponges, but no cleaning supplies. They made out a list and Dawn went shopping leaving Willow alone with Buffy. Dawn realized immediately that when she told Willow that she was going to leave her alone with Buffy that it had meant a great deal to Willow.

Dawn was only gone about an hour. When she came back the two of them had something to eat and then started cleaning the apartment from top to bottom, staying as quiet as possible so as not to wake Buffy up. When they finished the apartment was clean and smelled a lot better. The one thing they hadn't been able to do to much about was the thin and very dirty carpet. They didn't have a vacuum cleaner and couldn't have used it if they had it without waking Buffy up, but they did agree that in a day or two if Buffy was awake for any length of time and they could do it without a big fuss they would rent a carpet cleaner and heavy duty vacuum cleaner and finish up cleaning the place.

During the cleaning up of the place Willow got a look inside the bag that Dawn had brought with her the night before. She was surprised that besides the medical kit that Dawn had gotten the scissors and the elastic bandages from the big bag was full of weapons. Dawn explained that it was Buffy's Slayer bag from Rome and that Andrew had sent it to Dawn the past summer, but Dawn had been afraid to leave it with Buffy because of all the weapons. Willow understood what Dawn hadn't said, that a depressed, grieving and possibly suicidal Buffy shouldn't have a bag full of deadly weapons laying about.

The rest of the day went quietly as they cleaned the apartment and gathered up all the wet towels from the night before that needed to be taken to the laundry. Dawn also went through all of Buffy's cloths because she had discovered that almost all of Buffy's cloths had been put back into the closet and the small dresser dirty. Buffy had apparently worn them and just put them back into the drawers dirty. Dawn felt ashamed of herself for not realizing this situation a long time ago. During the past summer and early fall she had taken Buffy's cloths to a laundry on a regular basis. But when Buffy had cut back on Dawns visits and had gone into a fit one day about being perfectly capable of washing her own cloths Dawn had stopped doing it for her. Dawn figured that it had probably been at least two months or more since she'd had clean cloths to wear. In fact the panties and top that Dawn was wearing might have been the last ones Buffy had that were clean. Laundry was definitely on the list of things to do the next day.

Just before five Buffy woke up and the first thing she did was take a drink from the whiskey bottle she still had grasped in her hand. Dawn and Willow were at her side within seconds making sure she didn't try to sit up or move on her own. It took twenty minutes of coaching from Dawn to convince Buffy to eat some of the snaky food items that Willow had purchased the night before. She ate four powdered donuts, a cupcake, two pieces of chocolate and a few potato chips. Dawn also offered her a ham sandwich but she turned it down and Dawn didn't push. Willow was there through everything, not saying very much but offering support and encouragement. Neither one of them said anything about Buffy continuing to drink from the whiskey bottle even when she was eating donuts, cupcakes and chocolate.

They thought they were going to have a problem when Buffy tried to get out of bed on her own to go to the bathroom. After her first move and the sharp pain that shot through her shoulder and arm she agreed to let Dawn and Willow help her. They helped her to get out of bed slowly without jarring her arm or shoulder and walked her slowly to the bathroom. Dawn went in with her and Buffy allowed Dawn to pull down her panties and help sit down on the toilet. When she finished Dawn got her back on to her feet and pulled her panties up. By the time they walked her back to the bed and got her settled in again Buffy was sweating profusely. As soon as she asked for her bottle, Dawn promptly gave it to her without any fuss. When Buffy turned the bottle up and drank off all that was still in it, Willow silently brought her a fresh bottle after removing the cap.

For the next hour Buffy drank heavily until her eyes became glazed and distant. When she started following something with her eyes and talking to herself they knew that she was seeing Spike again and from her occasional smiles they knew she was happy. During the next eight hours Buffy finished the fresh bottle they had given her and started on a new one. Willow laid down on the couch and took a two hour nap. When she got up to take over watching Buffy, Dawn laid down and got a couple of hours of sleep herself.

When Buffy fell to sleep around two in the morning Dawn gathered up all of the dirty towels, sheets, pillow cases and all of Buffy's cloths from both her dresser and her closet and carried them out to her car. She then drove fifteen miles across town to a very large and well lit all night Laundromat and spent the next hour and a half washing cloths, folding and packing them out to her car. When she got back Willow helped her bring in all the fresh washed cloths. They put everything where it belonged and the whole apartment had that fresh clean cloths smell.

Buffy slept till after ten in the morning without waking up or moving around in her sleep. When she did wake up she took a small drink from the bottle she had held onto during the night and then handed it to Dawn to set on the nightstand. She talked to both of them occasionally and ate half a ham sandwich for lunch and a juice pack that Dawn had bought out of a vending machine at the Laundromat and brought home with her. She talked to both of them some more, sometimes thanking them for helping her and at other times apologizing for being a burden on them. Mostly she just laid there quietly or slipped off into short naps. When Dawn had to go with her to the bathroom again and this time wipe her butt for her after having a bowel movement she had become extremely embarrassed, had blushed a bright red, and when they got her back to bed she started drinking heavily again. When she finished that bottle Dawn gave her another one without her having to ask for it.

Around nine that night Buffy slowed down on her drinking and started speaking a little more coherently. Willow and Dawn were both exhausted and it took them awhile before they realized that Buffy was having a real time conversation instead of a memory conversation. She seemed to be asking questions some of the time and at other times she was having a conversation about Heaven and how it was different from where Spike had been. Buffy was doing a lot of smiling. Around midnight Buffy looked at Dawn and told her Spike said she was really growing up and he was proud of her. Dawn thanked Spike out loud and waited to see if Buffy would say more to her. Buffy fell to sleep even earlier than the night before and hadn't drank nearly as much as the previous two days.

Once Dawn was convinced that Buffy was sleeping and hadn't just nodded off for a few minutes she told Willow that she was going to go home to take a shower, change cloths and bring back some personal items to make staying with Buffy a little more comfortable. Willow told her to take her time and said she would keep an eye on Buffy and would just lay down on the couch to read a book. When Dawn got back to the apartment three hours later Willow was still in the same position she had been in when Dawn had left but was sleeping soundly, still holding on to her book.

Coming back into the apartment woke Willow up, but Dawn didn't make enough noise to wake Buffy. It took Dawn four trips to bring in everything she'd packed for her stay. Along with extra cloths to wear she'd also brought six pillows, extra blankets, an air mattress and her sleeping bag. With her own personal air mattress, pillow and sleeping bag Dawn could go anywhere and sleep anytime, she was a regular Campfire Girl.

She had also packed up Willows laptop and brought it to her. Dawn knew that Willows computer had her whole world on it; school work, research papers, personal correspondence, e-mail, web links, magic spells and hundreds and hundreds of files. Willow was very grateful that Dawn had thought of bringing her computer to her, but hadn't even considered asking for it. But with her computer and it's magically enhanced wi-fi connection she could stay in contact with the whole world and could even do all of her college work and research from Buffy's apartment and never have to leave.

Dawn gave Willow a couple pillows and a blanket to make her more comfortable on the couch. She then spread a blanket on the floor, to protect her air mattress from any possible slivers of broken glass on the carpet, blew up her air mattress and spread out her sleeping bag. By the time she had all this accomplished she was exhausted, it had been a really long couple of days without much sleep. They turned out all but one light in the bathroom and settled down to get some sleep before Buffy woke up again and needed them. Dawn had been laying in her bed for about fifteen minutes, her eyes heavy with the need for sleep, when she glanced toward Buffy's bed and seemed to see a vague shimmering image of Spike sitting on the end of Buffy's bed watching Buffy sleep. When Spike glanced over at Dawn and smiled at her, Dawn smiled back and closed her eyes to sleep.

(12/04)

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	8. It Hurts 8

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It Hurts (So Bad) - 8

It was the image of Spike smiling at her that woke Dawn up five hours later and made her sit straight up in her bed. She hadn't really processed what she had seen earlier, she had just felt safe knowing Spike was looking out for Buffy. Almost immediately she told herself that she hadn't really seen Spike, she had just dreamed she had seen him. What with Buffy talking to Spike and saying Spike was proud of her the night before it was probably just her imagination. But Dawn stared at the end of Buffy's bed and around the room carefully for ten minutes before she finally told herself she was just tired and got out of her bed.

The apartment was still dark, except for the one light they had left burning in the bathroom to see by. Being a basement apartment without windows meant that no sunlight ever entered the place. When picking a place to live it had made sense for Spike to pick a place like this, vampire and sunlight not mixing very well. But sometimes Dawn wished that there were windows to see out and be able to open and let in some fresh air. Well there was one window, in the bathroom, a small one with the glass painted over black. It was high on the wall over the toilet and faced out into the back alley. Dawn had forced the window open once shortly after Buffy had moved herself into Spikes apartment. But it only took a few minutes of smelling a garbage dumpster, mildew and rotting (whatever it was that was rotting and smelled so bad) for her to decide that was not the window to open ever again for fresh air.

Quietly Dawn set about making a pot of fresh coffee. While it was perking she went over to the bags she had brought with her the night before and dug out a plastic bag full of packets of sugar, sugar substitute and creamer. It also contained small bottles of mint, vanilla and almond extract and a small can of ground cinnamon. Dawn liked her coffee flavored and her current flavor was rich creamy coffee with a touch of almond. She knew that Willow preferred coffee with creamer with a little vanilla and a dash of cinnamon. She got two mugs out of the cabinet and prepared them with the proper ingredients and waited for the coffee to finish perking. Dawn used one sugar substitute and one creamer for Willows coffee, but she used four sugars and six creamers for her own. She just wished there was a way for her to whip it up all frothy and yummy like at Starbucks.

It was the smell of the fresh coffee that woke Willow up and drew her to the kitchen like a moth to a flame. The two of them stood quietly in front of the coffee pot sipping their coffee and talking in whispers so that they wouldn't wake Buffy. Willow was in the bathroom washing up and getting dressed when Buffy started moving and waking up. Dawn heard her making little noises and hurried over to her still holding her second cup of coffee in her hands. As she stood there watching she saw Buffy's nose twitching like a little bunnies. When her eyes opened she looked up at Dawn and smiled at her.

"Something smells yummy" Buffy mumbled sleepily.

"You want some?" Dawn asked quietly as she moved up next to Buffy and raised the mug up to her lips and let her take a sip.

Buffy did take a sip and then laid there licking her lips. "Mmmm, good! More!" she mumbled as she raised her hand to Dawns to guide the mug back to her lips and took another sip. Dawn stood there happily feeding sips of coffee to Buffy with a big smile on her face as she looked down on her.

When Willow came out of the bathroom and Buffy first saw her she tensed up for a moment, and then relaxed. Willow walked over to the bed and stood on the opposite side of it from Dawn. She didn't say anything for a few moments and then said shyly "Hi Buffy!"

Buffy looked up at Willow, her face relaxed and soft from sleep, and replied quietly "Hi Willow!"

Dawn watched Willows face brighten up joyfully at just the two words Buffy had spoken to her. Willow started to say something, as if she was going to gush out every thought in her head and heart, then stopped herself and just smiled her biggest, happiest, smile at Buffy instead.

Dawn continued to offer sips of coffee to Buffy and she continued to drink them. She didn't really feel like saying anything, she just felt kind of good, relaxed, peaceful. When she had enough of the coffee she pushed the mug away, but smiled up at Dawn to show her that she wasn't pushing her away. Dawn smiled at her and finished the remaining coffee in the mug herself.

The rest of the morning went quietly and they got Buffy to talk a little and eat some more of the donuts from the day before. It wasn't until she needed to use the bathroom again and had to be helped by Dawn and Willow to get there and then back to her bed again that she started going quiet and withdrawn. Halfway through the afternoon she tried to turn in the bed to reach for the half full bottle of whiskey sitting there. Dawn was at her side immediately and Buffy was prepared to argue with Dawn to get the bottle, but Dawn didn't say a word. She just took the cap off the bottle and handed the bottle to Buffy with a smile, then sat back down in her chair at the foot of Buffy's bed and started reading a book.

The rest of the afternoon Buffy drank from the bottle, steadily, but not heavily. It took her until the middle of the evening before she needed a fresh bottle and it was given to her without any fuss. During the evening they had even convinced Buffy to eat half a sandwich and a cupcake.

Around nine Buffy started talking to Spike again. Twice Dawn heard Buffy saying 'I love You'. At a little past midnight Buffy seemed to focus in on the real world around her. Looking around the little apartment she could see Willow sitting on the floor using the small coffee table as a desk as she typed away on her laptop. When she brought her eyes back to Dawn she smile at her.

Dawn had been sitting at the foot of Buffy's bed since she started talking to Spike, trying to understand where Buffy's mind was taking her by hearing one side of their strange conversation. Several times Buffy had smiled and seemed truly happy for a moment or two, once tears had slowly run down her cheeks.

Looking at Dawn, Buffy said "Did you know that Spike wanted to be a poet once? Back when he was living. He says he wasn't very good though…… He said his mother liked his poems, so that proves they weren't very good….. I'll bet he was good. He would always say the nicest things to me when I would let him….. I liked listening to his voice. I never told him though…… I never did tell him the things I wanted too. I would have these thoughts in my head but I could never seem to get them out……… You know, when I finally did, when I told him I loved him, he didn't believe me."

Slow tears started running down Buffy's cheeks as she stared pass Dawn at the foot of her bed. "But it's okay now. He believes me now. He said he'd never leave me again." Buffy closed her eyes with wet tears still on her cheeks and a sad smile on her lips and fell to sleep.

Dawn got up quietly from her chair and walked over to her sleeping bag. She laid down on it and burying her face in her pillow she started crying. Her whole body shook as she cried silently into her pillow. She drew herself up into a tight ball of pain and cried until she couldn't cry anymore. When she was finally able to unclench her body and look up from her wet pillow she saw Willow watching her with silent tears running down her face.

Dawn and Willow both slept like the dead, or emotionally exhausted anyway. Dawn woke up a few minutes before ten and got up to see how Buffy was doing. When she got over to the bed Buffy was already awake and smiled at her as she approached.

"Morning sleepy head" Buffy said quietly.

"Morning Buffy" Dawn said as she took Buffy hand in hers and gave it a little squeeze.

Buffy returned the squeeze and looking up at Dawn said "You know, that coffee you had yesterday, do you think I could have some this morning?"

"Ten minutes, give me ten minutes and I can have it ready, okay" Dawn replied excitedly.

"Sure" Buffy replied, "there's no hurry."

Dawn was gone in a flash over to the kitchen. Buffy laid there watching her bustle about measuring out the coffee, putting water in the pot and starting the coffee brewing. She watched Dawn get mugs out of the cabinet and pour packets of sugar and creamer and other things into the cups, and then stand there impatiently waiting for the coffee to finish brewing. Tapping her toe on the floor as if that would make the coffee brew faster. When the coffee was done she carried two mugs of the steaming coffee over to the bed and handed one of them to Buffy. Dawn pulled up the chair from near the foot of the bed and sat down next to Buffy and started sipping on her own cup. Buffy slowly sipped at her coffee and licked her lips between sips.

"This is so good, there must be a million calories in each cup" Buffy said with a smile.

"Like you couldn't use a few more calories" Dawn said jokingly, and then realizing what she had just said got a shocked look on her face as if she were afraid she had just said something to hurt Buffy's feelings.

Buffy looked at Dawn and smiled at her. "You know your right. I think I might even have a second one, if you make it as good as this one."

"Oh, I will" Dawn replied enthusiastically "I've got it down to an art form. I know just the right amount of ingredients. Of course it would really be a lot better if we had real cream and one of those little machines to whip it up all frothy, like they do at Starbucks. But hey, this is pretty good for a girl that can't cook."

"Well in the Buffy world this is cooking and it tastes pretty good to me" Buffy replied and they both laughed a little and went back to drinking their coffee.

The smell of coffee and laughter woke Willow up at last. She rolled out of her bed on the couch and headed straight for the coffee pot. When she got there she found a mug with all the right ingredients waiting for her and just had to add the coffee and stir. Once she had her first sip she turned and walked over to the foot of Buffy's bed, right behind Dawn, and mumbled out a sleepy "Good Morning!" to both of them.

The rest of the morning went by in a flash of talking and talking. Dawn and Willow stayed away from any topic that they thought might upset Buffy in the least. Mostly they talked about Dawn and how she was doing at school. Dawn talked about a few girls at school that she had made friends with, and about a couple of cute boys she had met that she kind of liked. Willow talked about some of her classes and about a cute girl she had met and was trying to build up the nerve to ask out for coffee or something. Willow had broken up with Kennedy nearly a year before and hadn't ventured out into the dating world yet. Buffy even added little anecdotes about the trials and tribulations of high school dating and laughed about the embarrassing moments.

They had a late brunch-lunch of donuts, cupcakes, corn chips, nachos with salsa and bean dip, and deli ham sandwich's. When Buffy needed to go to the bathroom she didn't get all embarrassed this time and let Dawn clean her up without turning all red. When they finished in the bathroom Buffy sat on a chair while Dawn and Willow stripped her bed and put fresh sheets on the bed and fresh pillow cases on the pillows. Buffy even let Willow comb and brush her hair while Dawn painted her toenails a bright red. The whole day seemed to fly by and everyone seemed to be happy.

It was after six when Buffy started withdrawing from them. When she sat up in bed and tried to turn herself so that she could reach for the bottle of whiskey that had been sitting on the nightstand all day, Dawn was right there beside her. Dawn didn't say anything or make a fuss or a face or any other sign of disapproval. She just took the cap off and handed the bottle to Buffy and then made sure that she was situated in the bed so that she was comfortable and wouldn't have to move around to much.

Buffy finished the half bottle she had and Dawn gave her a fresh one. She'd only drank a little from the fresh bottle when she started talking to Spike again. Her eyes were a little glassy and unfocused, but they moved about as if Spike were moving about the room. Most of the time though they were focused on the foot of the bed as if Spike were sitting there talking to her. She smiled, she laughed a few times, and once she blushed when she became aware that Dawn was sitting next to her bed.

Dawn moved away from the bed and joined Willow over on the couch. They made a list of things they needed from the store and Willow dug into her big carry-everything bag and pulled out a big fat roll of twenty dollar bills and handed a bunch of them to Dawn without even counting. Willow went back to working on something on her computer while listening for any sound from Buffy that she needed anything. Dawn left the apartment and drove to a better part of town to do her grocery shopping.

Two hours later Dawn got back and with the help of Willow it only took three trips to bring in everything she'd bought at the store. There was canned soups, spaghetti, bottled sauce, macaroni and cheese, canned vegetables, canned fruit, more coffee, ten pounds of sugar, two boxes of sugar substitute, fresh fruit, more snack food, fresh bread, cake, cheese, deli meats sliced thin, sandwich spread, mustard, butter, canned chili, fruit drink, orange juice, skim milk and 2 milk, a dozen assorted frozen dinners, plus microwave popcorn and a small microwave. Why Dawn had never thought of bringing Buffy a microwave before was a monstrous oversight. The microwave was the modern woman's friend, that and precooked frozen dinners. No woman needed to slave away in a kitchen cooking ever again. Not as long as she had electricity and Lean-Cuisine.

Once they had put everything away in the cabinets and the refrigerator they tried out the new microwave and made popcorn. It was after midnight and they were sitting next to each other watching a movie on Willows laptop that she had downloaded off the internet. When Buffy made a loud sound they both nearly broke their necks getting to her as fast as possible. When they got there Buffy seemed to be in the real world and had a pout on her lips.

"Buffy, what is it? What's wrong?" Dawn asked breathlessly, worry on her face and in the tone of her voice.

Buffy looked up at Dawn with the pout still on her lips and said "Spike wants me to get fat!"

"What? …. What?" Dawn asked in shock.

"Spike say's I'm to skinny, that I need to put on weight" Buffy sail sulkily. "He said I need to eat more. Healthy stuff, and that I should stop smoking, it's bad for my lungs. He laughed at me when I got mad at him!"

"Uuh, maybe Spikes right" Dawn said cautiously. "About the healthy stuff and smoking anyway. You don't really like smoking and it is kind of smelly. We have all kinds of food now, I went shopping tonight and we have a whole lot of stuff you like."

"Did Spike tell you to make me fat" Buffy asked and started pouting again.

"No Buffy, Spike didn't say anything to me, honest" Dawn told her with a straight face. Willow was standing behind her with her hand clapped over her mouth to keep from laughing, which would not be a good thing for a pouty Buffy to hear right now. "I got it for Willow and me, cause we get hungry sometimes, but you can share it if you want, there's plenty of it for all of us."

Buffy grabbed the bottle of whiskey that was propped against her hip and thrust it out at Dawn to take from her. "I'm going to sleep" she said and closed her eyes.

Dawn went around and turned off all the lights except the one in the bathroom and a low watt light next to the couch. She sat down next to Willow and they both tried hard not to laugh, but when they heard Buffy mumble something about 'getting fat' in her sleep they had to grab pillows and bury their faces in them while they giggled out of control.

(12/04)

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	9. It Hurts 9

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It Hurts (So Bad) - 9

The next two days went pretty much like Friday had gone, Buffy drinking coffee in the morning, eating more food throughout the day, talking to both Dawn and Willow, and occasionally making comments about Spike. Some of the comments were about things that had happened in the past, but some of them were about things in the present.

When the comments were about the past Dawn wasn't too worried because she could just view them as memories. But when Buffy talked about things that she said Spike had talked about in the present, a twinge of fear ran through her whole body. Dawn was scared half to death that Buffy was slipping off into a world of non-reality and there wasn't anything she could do to stop it. On the couple of occasions when Dawn had tried to make careful comments about what Buffy was saying about Spike, Buffy had just looked at her as if she couldn't comprehend what Dawn was saying.

Two important things, well three actually, that occurred over those two days were that Buffy had definitely started eating more, had started drinking less, and had only smoked a few cigarettes a day. Even with the cigarettes she did light up she didn't really smoke that much of them, it was more like she got some kind of comfort watching the smoke rise up in the air as they burned away as she held them between her fingers.

With all the food that Dawn had bought and brought into the apartment there should have been enough to feed them all for a week, but if Buffy even hinted that she had a craving for something specific to eat, Dawn or Willow would rush out immediately to get it for her.

With the drinking, Buffy didn't even look at the bottle of whiskey sitting next to her on the nightstand during the day and would only start drinking in the evening. When she did start drinking she would drink heavily at first until she reached a certain level of intoxication and would then slow down and only drink enough to maintain that specific level. It was during these times of intoxication that Buffy could apparently see and talk to Spike. She would nurse her bottle of whiskey and talk to Spike all evening. The surprise of the situation was that when she finished the bottle, instead of asking for another one, she would hand the empty to Dawn or Willow and then go to sleep. Only once, late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, depending on how you wanted to look at it, did she wake up screaming with tears running down her face. But even then she only took one drink from the bottle of whiskey Dawn had handed to her before she handed it back and went back to sleep, her face still wet from her tears..

Monday morning Dawn had to go back to school. Willow had typed up and printed out an excuse for Dawns absents from school the previous week and had also added that if Willow or Dawns sister Buffy should call the school, Dawn should be permitted to leave immediately. This added caveat greatly eased Dawns concern about leaving Buffy.

With Dawn gone the care of Buffy was up to Willow. This was the first time, except for a couple of hours at a time when Dawn was out shopping or doing other things, that Willow was being left totally alone with Buffy. The fact that Dawn was willing to allow this was very important to Willow because it proved that Dawn felt she could trust Willow not to do or say anything that would harm or upset Buffy.

Willow had been shocked, emotionally assaulted and reduced to a sobbing wreck on the floor by Dawn the previous week. But the lesson she had learned from that experience and the time she had spent writing on the wall had made a change in her that she felt was life altering. Twice since that first night Willow had gone back out into the hall with a pencil and added more columns of "Buffy loves Spike! Buffy will always love Spike! Buffy will love Spike until the end of the world!" to the columns already there.

Each time Willow added more columns and spoke the words as she wrote them she became more and more determined to become the kind of friend she should have always been to Buffy. She silently swore to herself at least a hundred times a day that if she could ever repair the damage she had already done to her relationship with Buffy she would never again abuse that friendship in any way.

Dawn had taken a shower the night before and had gotten up quietly and left for school without her morning coffee. She had been afraid that making coffee would wake Buffy up to early. Willow had gotten up as Dawn was dressing and had assured her that if Buffy got upset or needed her in anyway she would call Dawn at school immediately. Once Dawn was gone Willow sat in the chair at the foot of Buffys bed and watched Buffy sleep. When she noticed that Buffy was starting to move around in her bed a little and appeared to be waking up she made a fresh pot of coffee and prepared all the ingredients to make a mug full of coffee just like Buffy liked and had it ready for her when she finally opened her eyes.

When Buffy did open her eyes and saw Willow standing there she seemed to flinch. Willow noticed the flinch and her sense of guilt at the pain of distrust she had caused Buffy made her heart ache. But she smiled at Buffy and held out the mug of coffee to her, only saying "Good morning Buffy" in a quiet voice.

Buffy hesitated for only a few moments before taking the offered coffee and replied "Morning Willow" just as quietly.

When Buffy started looking around the room Willow understood immediately that she was looking for Dawn. "Dawn had to go to school today" Willow told her in a soothing calm voice, "but if you need her I can call the school and she could be home in no time".

Buffy looked back at Willow and after taking a sip of her coffee she smiled at Willow and replied "No, that's okay, she needs to be at school." Willow didn't say anything, she just nodded her head, smiled and sipped her own coffee, waiting for Buffy to say something to her if she wanted to talk.

After a minute or so and a few more sips of coffee frown lines began to appear between Buffys eyebrows. She glanced up a Willow several times before finally saying "What about you, and school? Don't you have to go to school too?"

Willow moved a little closer to the bed and leaned her hip against it. "No, not really. Half of my classes are independent study and the rest them I can download the lecture notes and assignments from the school computer. I don't really need to go to classes unless I want too."

The frown lines were still present, but not as pronounced as before, when Buffy questioned "Are you sure? I wouldn't want to make you miss something important."

Willow considered for a few moments whether or not Buffy was really saying she wanted Willow to leave and go to school, leaving her alone. Willow decided that she would just answer the question at face value and ignore any implications. So she just smiled a big happy smile at Buffy and told her "Yeah, you know me and school Buffy. I've already got so many extra credit points in all my classes I could take the rest of the semester off and still get A's. Besides, with my computer over there" Willow pointed over at her computer on the coffee table, "I can do all my work and send it in to my professors and never leave this apartment."

The frown lines finally disappeared from between Buffy's eyebrows and her face relaxed as she gave Willow a little smile. She laid there in her bed quietly and finished her coffee, not sure what to say to Willow next. When all the coffee was gone she looked up at Willow again and with a smile on her face she asked "Could I have another one, please?"

Willow again gave Buffy her biggest smile and taking the coffee mug from her hand almost skipped across the room to the kitchen and made her another mug of coffee. After giving Buffy her fresh coffee Willow asked her if she would like to have something to eat. She offered fresh fruit, cereal with fruit, toast with butter and jelly, or pancakes with syrup. When she mentioned pancakes and saw Buffy's eyes light up, without asking any more questions, she went back to the kitchen and got a pack of frozen pancakes out of the freezer and popped them into the microwave. When the pancakes were done she covered them with a large amount of butter and syrup, poured some orange juice in a glass and putting everything on a tray brought it over to Buffy and set the tray in her lap. She then propped herself against the side of the bed and held onto the tray so that Buffy wouldn't slide it off her lap and told her to start eating.

As Willow watched Buffy eat the thought passed through her mind that the last time she had seen Buffy eat pancakes had been almost three years ago when Tara had made a big batch of pancakes one Sunday morning and Buffy had eaten more than anyone else. Willow wondered to herself if possibly that might have been the last time that Buffy had eaten pancakes. A sense of sadness washed over Willow as she thought about Tara, but it was quickly followed by a sense of joy as she watched the way Buffy was eating.

When Buffy finished her breakfast, Willow took the dishes back to the kitchen and washed everything up. When she was finished she went back to Buffy to see if she needed anything else. When Buffy looked up at her with her face all red Willow understood immediately what was needed and without any comment or making a fuss helped her out of bed and into the bathroom, pulled down her panties, and helped her sit down on the toilet. When Buffy was finished, still blushing profusely, Willow helped her stand up, wiped her clean and then helped her back to bed and settled her into a comfortable position. Dawn had been helping Buffy go to the bathroom for the past five days so this was the first time Willow had been needed to help and Buffy was completely embarrassed by the whole situation.

Seeing how embarrassed Buffy was by the whole situation Willow felt compelled to do or say something to ease the tension, so from out of no where she started telling jokes. At first Buffy didn't respond, but Willow kept telling joke after joke after joke. By the fifth or sixth joke Buffy had stopped blushing and was smiling at the jokes and by the ninth or tenth was laughing. When she ran out of jokes she knew, Willow started telling funny stories she had heard or read about. For over a half hour she carried on and even stepped away from the bed to act out some of the scenes and punch lines. Buffy was laughing so much that tears were in her eyes on several occasions. When she finally ran down and was standing next to the bed again, Buffy hesitantly reached out and gave Willows hand a little squeeze and smiled at her. Willow felt her heart was going to burst with joy and counted that squeeze and smile as a first step toward reestablishing a friendship that was more important to her than anything else in the world.

Dawn got home a little later than expected, but as soon as she came through the door the apartment was filled with the aroma of hot cheeseburgers and fries. Buffys nose was twitching involuntarily and her mouth seemed to have an excess of saliva she had to keep swallowing by the time Dawn had unpacked the burgers and fries and placed them on a tray she carried over to Buffys bed. Buffy couldn't even remember the last time she'd had a cheeseburger and fries. But whenever it was they hadn't been anything like what was before her now. The bun was huge and the burger had to be at least a pound of meat. There was extra cheese melted all over it, plus pickles and onions, with mustard and catsup. The huge mound of French fries were still hot and while crispy on the outside were soft and moist on the inside. Dawn stood on one side of the bed while Willow stood on the other side and they all ate as if they hadn't eaten in days. When Dawn reached for the last fry, Buffy snatched it from the plate first and popped it into her mouth. Dawns mouth dropped open as Buffy looked at her with a satisfied smirk on her face as she swallowed. When Buffy started laughing, Dawn and Willow couldn't help themselves and joined her. Seeing Buffy laughing for the first time in forever made Dawn the happiest she could remember being since before their mom had died. The pain of that thought, mom dying, stole a little of the joy from the moment, but not enough to spoil it.

(12/04)

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	10. It Hurts 10

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It Hurts (So Bad) - 10

When Dawn walked through the apartment door, after getting out of school, she could tell immediately that something was wrong. She looked over at Buffy and could see that she had a bottle of whiskey in her hand and had obviously been drinking heavily. Her eyes were glazed and she was mumbling to herself between sips. She also had a look of near panic on her face. Dawn hurried over to Buffys bed, but it became apparent within moments that Buffy was unaware of her presence. By the way her eyes kept darting around the room it seemed as if she were searching for something she couldn't find.

Dawn looked around for Willow but didn't see her anywhere in sight. She did notice that the bathroom door was closed and after waiting for several moments she tapped on the door lightly. When the door opened she could see that Willow had been crying hard and that she barely had herself under control. Willow reached out and grabbing her arm pulled Dawn into the bathroom and closed the door behind them quickly.

As soon as she was through the door Willow started talking fast through her tears and sobs. "I'm sorry Dawnie I didn't mean to hurt her or upset her but she said Spike talked to Tara last night. It hurt Dawnie. Telling me Spike talked to Tara. I got upset and started crying and I don't know why I did it but I just blurted out that Spike couldn't talk to Tara because she's in heaven. Buffy got mad and started crying and wouldn't talk to me and she started drinking and I couldn't stop crying so I came in here."

"Willow, stop, stop!" Dawn said forcefully as she grabbed Willows by the shoulders and held her still. In a calmer voice she continued, "Slow down and tell me what happened? What did Buffy say to you and what did you say to her?"

Willow took a deep breath of air and held it in while she tried to control herself. She let the air out and took another breath in, held it, then let it out slowly. When Willow had herself under control she started talking slowly so that she wouldn't lose it again. "We'd been getting along fine all morning talking about different things. I kept away from mentioning anything about Xander, Giles or Angel. Just like you said, don't talk about anything that might upset her. She fell asleep for a little while and it was after she woke up, we were talking again, and from out of no where she said that Spike told her that he'd talked to Tara last night and she told him that she's glad I broke up with Kennedy because it couldn't have ever worked out for us. But she likes the new girl I've been talking to at school because she thinks she's nice and will be good for me. But I need to make sure to let her know about being a witch before we get involved, because she might have a problem with it, and it wouldn't be fair to get involved with her and then tell her, because it might scare her, because some people can't deal with the whole witchcraft thing. Dawnie, I couldn't help it. Saying that Spike was talking to Tara, it hurt. Goddess Dawnie, I loved Tara so much and for Buffy to say things like that, it just tore right through me. I started crying and I just blurted out that Spike is dead and Tara is in heaven so Spike couldn't have talked to her, and that Spike is just in her head and isn't real."

Dawn understood immediately what might have upset Buffy so much. But she needed to find out for sure. Taking Willow by both shoulders she gave her a little shake to make sure she was focused on Dawn and not her own thoughts. "When you told Buffy that Spike was dead and couldn't be talking to Tara, did you say that Spike was in hell and that was why he couldn't talk to Tara?"

Willow stood there for several moments blinking her eyes and trying to remember her exact words. "I, … I don't think so Dawnie. I think … I just said he was dead, and that he was just in her head … and not real."

A low groan escaped Dawns lips before she could suppress it. When she started to speak there was both a note of whining and exasperation in her voice. "Damn it Willow, how could you have said something like that. You know how much she loves and misses Spike. Even if he is an hallucination, it's all she's got left of him. Telling her that Spikes not real, that he's just in her head, that's the same thing as telling her that she's crazy. She told us that she thought she was crazy at first, but Spike convinced her that she wasn't. Now you've probably got her thinking that she's crazy again."

Tears were running down Willows face again as she tried to speak. "I … I'm sor… sorry, I … I didn't mean to hu… hurt her … or upset her. Please Dawnie, I'm sorry. I… it was talking abo… about Tara. All the pain, it just all ca… came back, missing her so much. I started crying and the wo… words just came out."

Dawn pulled Willow into a hug as she spoke quietly into her ear. "I know Will, I know you didn't mean to hurt her. I just hope I can fix this, say something to make things okay again."

Willow pushed back from Dawn far enough so that she could see her face before speaking. "Bu… but, how can you fix it Dawnie? I… it is crazy, isn't it? Seeing Spike, talking to him, that is ki… kind of crazy, isn't it?"

Dawn released her hold on Willow and took a half step back. She folded her arms across herself and stared down at the floor between them for a full minute or more, thinking. When she lifted her head she could see that Willow had pulled both of her arms in front of herself tightly, one hand was clasping the other and the tip of one thumb was in her mouth as she worried at it with her teeth.

Dawn took a deep breath and let it out slowly before speaking. "Do you ever think about the world we live in, Will? I was a million year old mystical ball of energy that got turned into a real girl by a bunch of monks. You're a witch with enough power to destroy the world. We live in a world of vampires and demons and apocalypses. Buffy was dead for almost five months and you pulled her out of heaven and brought her back to life. Spike was burned to ashes saving the world and was brought back and died again preventing another apocalypse. What's crazy in our world? Are you crazy? Am I? Is Buffy crazy because she's the only one that can see or hear Spike? I don't know what's crazy in this world and neither do you."

Dawn took another deep breath, let it out slowly, then continued. "Remember when Buffy got infected with that demon venom and thought she was in a mental hospital and that all of us, this whole world, was an hallucination? Maybe she was right. Maybe she really is locked up somewhere and all of this isn't real. But right now, in this world, Buffy is in the other room getting drunk, I'm standing here talking to you and your standing here biting your thumb, and I really wish you would stop doing that before you hurt yourself."

Willow jerked her thumb out of her mouth in reaction to Dawns words and as if in a daze looked down at her thumb. She could see the indentation of her teeth in the tip of her thumb and suddenly became aware of the pain she was feeling. Unconsciously she started shaking her hand in front of herself and a quiet "Oww" escaped her lips. Her head snapped up and she looked Dawn in the eyes.

A small smile spread across Dawns lips before she started speaking. "Oww, yourself. Feels real doesn't it?" After pausing for several moments, Dawn continued. "See, Will, I don't know what's real, or crazy. All I know for sure is that in this world, the one we live in, almost anything is possible. So if Buffy says she can see and hear Spike, maybe it's just an hallucination, or maybe it's real. I don't know? But what I do know is that for the last few days Buffy has been drinking less and eating more, because Spike told her too. I know that she has been talking and smiling and laughing, because of Spike. I don't know if that means she's crazy or if it's just another part of this weird world we live in."

Willow just stood there looking at Dawn for several long moments. She started to say something, but nothing came out. She shook her head, as if to clear her head of confusion, but still couldn't come up with anything to say.

Dawn gave Willow another small smile before speaking. "Crazy, isn't it? Look Will, I'm going to go out there and try to talk to Buffy. I want you to wash your face and get yourself under control. When you think your ready, open the door to let me know, but don't come out until I call for you. Okay? But while your in here, think about what I said."

Dawn gave Willow another smile, squared her shoulders, opened the door and left the bathroom, closing the door behind her. Looking across the room she could see Buffy taking another drink from the bottle she had gripped in her hand. Dawn took a deep breath, put a smile on her face and walked over to the bed where Buffy was laying, propped up by pillows against the headboard. Dawn stood there for a couple of minutes watching, Buffys eyes were filled with tears and slightly glazed from the alcohol. She kept turning her head from side to side, searching the room for something. Her lips were moving and she was mumbling something in a faint whisper.

Dawn leaned in close to Buffy until she was able to hear and understand what she was saying. In a whisper filled with pain she heard Buffy whisper, "Please Spike, please come back. Please, you promised you wouldn't leave me again. Please, please come back, I love you, please come back." Buffy kept whispering this over and over as her eyes searched the room looking for Spike.

The stab of pain that Dawn felt in her heart after hearing Buffys words nearly broke her. Tears came to her own eyes but she refused to shed them. Dawn knew she had to be strong if she was going to help Buffy and letting herself cry right now wasn't going to help anyone. Taking a deep breath and swallowing down her own pain she moved up close to Buffy and reaching out with her right hand she gently placed it against the left side of Buffys face. She didn't try to prevent Buffy from turning her head from side to side, nor get in the way as she brought the bottle of whiskey to her lips again. She just kept a light but constant contact as she started speaking quietly to Buffy.

"Spike loves you Buffy. Spike loves you more than anything else in the world. If Spike promised he wouldn't leave you, then he's still here Buffy. Spike wouldn't break his promise to you. Spike loves you Buffy. Spike loves you so much. More than anything else, Spike loves you the most. Spike's still here Buffy, he promised he wouldn't leave you. Spikes still here because he loves you Buffy."

Dawn kept repeating these same thoughts and words over and over again. For several long minutes while Dawn spoke to her, Buffy continued her whispered plea to Spike to return to her. Eventually Dawns words seemed to penetrate her thoughts and she stopped moving her head from side to side and focused her eyes on Dawn. The glaze seemed to lift from her eyes as her focus sharpened. Buffy stopped her whispering and started listening to all of Dawns words. Buffy listened to Dawns reassurances of Spikes love for several minutes without moving or reacting in any way. Suddenly her breath seemed to catch in her throat and a fresh flood of tears poured from her eyes. Buffy laid there crying and gasping for breath as Dawn continued to tell her how much Spike loved her and that he would never leave her again.

Slowly Dawn moved from standing next to Buffys bed to sitting on it, her hip was tight up against Buffys thigh. She kept constant contact with her right hand against Buffys left cheek. She used her left hand and softly brushed her fingers over and through Buffys hair. She never stopped talking to Buffy, never stopped telling her how much Spike loved her.

It took several minutes before Buffy had her breathing back under control and wasn't gasping for air any longer. The flood of tears had lessened, but the occasional tear still ran down her face. Looking up into Dawns eyes Buffy tried to speak. At first her voice was more of a croak than anything else, "It hurts." Buffy tried to clear her throat by taking a small sip of whiskey. When she started speaking again the croak was gone, but there was a raspy tremor to her voice. "It hurts, so much, Dawnie. When he was gone, I didn't want to go on living without him. I just wanted to be with him. I started seeing him just before Christmas. I thought he was just an hallucination, because of the drinking. But I didn't care Dawnie, because just seeing him made me feel happy. Last week, when I got hurt, he started talking to me and I could hear him for the first time. He told me that the reason I could hear him was because I really needed him, to help me." Buffy took another small sip of whiskey, then started talking again, "Spikes the one who told me to call you for help. I didn't know what to do. He told me that your phone number was in the memory dial. I didn't know that Dawnie, honest I didn't. He's been with me most of the time since then. He has to go back, to where he is, everyday. But he's come back everyday too. But I need him now Dawnie, and he hasn't come back."

A fresh flow of tears started running down Buffys cheeks and she started to sob again. Dawn leaned forward and kissed Buffy on the forehead. As she pulled back the tears that she could no longer hold back ran down her cheeks. "He'll be back Buffy. Spike loves you. He promised that he wouldn't leave you again, didn't he? You know that Spike doesn't like to break his promises. He'll be back, because he promised, and because he loves you."

Dawn continued to talk to Buffy, calming her down, helping her to get herself under control. While she was talking to Buffy, Dawn heard the bathroom door open behind her. She didn't look back, she didn't stop talking, she didn't move her hands away from Buffy or stop trying to sooth her. Dawn kept talking and touching until Buffy stopped crying and was breathing normally again. When she thought the time was right, speaking just a little louder than before, she said "Buffy, about what Willow said to you." Dawn noticed immediately a tightening in Buffys face. "Buffy, she's really sorry that she hurt you or upset you. She didn't mean to do that, honest. I think it was just, … when you mentioned Tara, she kind of lost it. You know how much you love Spike, right? How much you missed him? Well, I think Willow is still the same way about Tara. Tara has been gone a long time now, but Willow, she still loves Tara, and misses her, just like you missed Spike." Dawn felt the tightness leaving Buffys face and her eyes seemed to soften. Dawn felt a slight nod of Buffys head, as if to signal that she understood what Dawn had just said and agreed. "Willow would like to apologize to you, for upsetting you. Will you let her do that? She really is sorry Buffy." Dawn could feel Buffy nod her head slightly in agreement, and without raising her voice to much, she said "Willow."

Dawn could hear Willow moving across the floor quickly and saw her move into place on the opposite side of the bed from her. She looked over and could see that Willow had stopped crying, but her eyes were still red and puffy. She could also tell how nervous Willow was, her shoulders were hunched together, both arms were pulled in tight against her chest and both hands were clenched together to keep them from shaking. Dawn looked back at Buffy and could tell that Buffy was seeing the same nervousness that she was seeing. Dawn sat back and let her left hand settle in her lap, she moved her right hand down from Buffys face and let it settle on Buffys stomach. With her hand on Buffys stomach Dawn let her thumb start moving, just a little, back and forth. The movement was a constant reminder to Buffy that Dawn was there with her, holding her, loving her.

When Willow first tried to speak to Buffy she was so nervous all that she could get out of her mouth was a little squeak. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Bu… Buffy, I… I'm sorry. I'm really really sorry. I didn't mean to upset you or hurt you, I'm sorry." As Willow looked at Buffy for a sign that she was forgiven, the anxiety she was feeling was clearly written on her face. A small brief smile touched Buffys lips and in a quiet voice she said, "It's okay Willow. I'm sorry too. I guess I shouldn't have told you what Tara said to Spike. I didn't know it would upset you so much."

"No, no, Buffy" Willow said in a rush. "It wasn't what Tara said that upset me, it was you saying she talked to Spike that upset me."

As soon as the words were out of her mouth Willow knew she had said the wrong thing. Dawns head had snapped to the side and she was staring at Willow with a frown on her face. Buffys face had gone stiff and she had turned her face away from Willow.

"Oh Goddess, Buffy" Willow said in a hurry. "That's not what I meant, not the way it sounded. It wasn't that Tara talked to Spike that upset me, it was that she won't talk to me." The pain that was in Willows voice had it's effect on both Buffy and Dawn. Buffy turned her head back so that she could again see Willows face. A question was clearly written in her eyes. The frown had slipped away from Dawns face, but was replaced with puzzlement. When Dawn spoke she only said one word, "Explain."

Willows nervousness seemed to increase before their eyes as they watched her. Fresh tears formed in her eyes, her bottom lip started to tremble, and she was twisting her fingers together so tightly that there was a real danger of her hurting herself. Dawn raised her hand from Buffys stomach and reaching over grabbed Willow hands and pulled them apart. She kept hold of one of Willows hands and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Tell us what you meant to say Willow. Explain it to us so that we can understand."

Willow reached out with her free hand and fisted a handful of the sheet on Buffys bed. With tears running down her face and her voice shaking, she tried to talk. "Bu… Buffy, Daw… Dawnie, please!" she gasped out. "I… I… I've be… been try… trying to ta… talk to… to… to talk to Ta… Tara for over a year now, an… and sh… she wo… won't talk to me." Willow then seemed to collapse in on herself and sank to the floor on her knees. With Dawn still holding on to her hand she ended up with her face buried against Buffys thigh, crying and sobbing, out of control.

Watching Willow cry, seeing the pain she was in, Buffys heart moved her to help her friend. Setting the whiskey bottle on the night stand, freeing her hand, she reached over and brushed her fingers over Willows hair and made little soothing sounds to try to ease Willows pain.

Dawn watched Buffy trying to sooth Willows pain away and the love she felt for Buffy seemed to grow ever larger. The fact that just barely twenty minutes before Buffy herself was in so much emotional pain that she needed to be soothed and reassured by Dawn, and now here she was trying to help Willow with her pain. A big smile spread across Dawns face as she watched Buffy. A strong sense of reassurance spread through Dawn that someday, maybe even soon, Buffy would heal and be her old self again. With that thought crossing her mind, Dawn reconsidered. She didn't want Buffy to be her old self again, she wanted her to be a stronger new self.

It took nearly fifteen minutes before Willow cried herself out and had herself under control again. Dawn was certain that it would have taken a lot longer if it hadn't been for Buffy soothing her with soft words and a gentle touch. Dawn holding Willows hand had probably contributed a little also. When Willow finally lifted her head, her eyes were red and puffy, but they were dry. Her breathing was back to normal and she seemed to have herself under control again.

Buffy, seeing Willows tear streaked face, gently caressed the side of her face, then reached over and took the hand that was fisted in her sheet into her own hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. In a calm, gentle voice, Buffy spoke to Willow. "Tell us the rest of it Willow. Tell us about Tara, and trying to talk to her. Tell us why it upsets you so much."

For a few moments a look of both fear and panic flashed across Willows face and in her eyes. Shutting her eyes tightly and clenching her jaws she fought back her emotions. When she opened her eyes again, she looked Buffy in the eyes and saw an openness there that had been missing for a very long time. Giving both Buffy and Dawns hand a squeeze, she released their hands, and placing her hands on the bed she pushed herself up off her knees. She then used one of the sleeves of her extra extra large UCLA sweatshirt and wiped the tear tracks from her face. Pulling the sweatshirt up, it was so big it went all the way down to her knees, she reached into the front pocket of her jeans and pulled out a fist full of tissues. Taking one of the tissues she used it to blow her nose. Then not knowing what to do with the used tissue she pulled the sweatshirt back up and stuffed the used tissue back into her pocket.

Buffy and Dawn both watched Willow, knowing she was stalling for time while she pulled herself together and calmed down. Neither of them minded the delay, knowing Willow needed it. When she had herself in order, Willow looked back up to Buffys face. Buffy smiled at her and held out her hand toward Willow. Reaching out, Willow took Buffys hand with her right hand and sat down on the bed, placing her hip firmly against Buffys thigh. Dawn reached out and took Willows left hand in her right hand, giving it a slight squeeze, then letting both of their hands come to rest lightly on Buffys stomach.

Looking at the three of them, Buffy propped up in Spikes narrow bed. Dawn and Willow each sitting on opposite sides of the bed, up tight against Buffy. Buffy holding one of Willows hands while Dawn held the other. There was an intimacy, a level of comfort, a closeness, that is rarely seen, except amongst the very best of friends, or sisters.

Willow took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. She glanced over at Dawn and saw a gentle smile on her lips. Looking at Buffy she saw the same smile, one of love and understanding. She gave both of them a shy smile in return, squeezed both of their hands, and then started talking.

"Last year, when I was still down in Brazil, with Kennedy. I met an old shaman that could talk to the spirits of his peoples tribe. He'd learned it from his father, who learned it from his father, who learned it from his father, and on and on, back hundreds of years. The shamans son had been killed by demons, before Kennedy killed the demons. So there wasn't anyone for him to pass his knowledge on to, and when he dies the knowledge will be lost to his tribe forever. He has a grandson, but he's to young to learn how to do the meditations and trance that's required, he's just a little boy. I did a paper on it for my Anthropology class and got an A+." Willow gave a big smile to both Dawn and Buffy, then realized she'd gotten a little off track.

"So, anyway, when I learned about what the shaman could do, I asked him to try to contact Tara, and he agreed to do it. I was with him all the way through his meditations and when he went into his trance. I could feel it, the power he was tapping into, it was really strong. I could sense it when he crossed the barrier into heaven. It was just like Buffy said that heaven was like, all warm and peaceful. I even felt it when he found Tara. I could feel her Buffy. Goddess, she felt so happy. But as soon as she felt our presence, or maybe it was just my presence, the connection was broken, like slamming a door shut. I begged the shaman to try again, but he refused. He told me that he couldn't force his way into the spirit world, the spirit world had to let him in peacefully. He told me that the spirit world that Tara is in is different from the spirit world that his people are in, and that maybe that was why the door had been shut, because he didn't belong in Tara's spirit world."

A single tear broke free and ran down Willows cheek, but she didn't loose control. Taking a deep breath she got herself back in order. "So, anyway, again. I talked the shaman into teaching me the meditations and the trance state that was needed to contact the spirit world on my own. He didn't want to do it at first. I think he thought I would try to force my way into heaven and force Tara to talk to me. Not that I could really do that, or that I would even try, but I think he wasn't so sure. But, eventually I talked him into it by promising to come back to his tribe when his grandson is old enough and teaching him the meditations and the trance, so that he could continue to contact the spirit world for their tribe. See, the shaman is really old and he's afraid that he's going to die before the boy is old enough to learn from him."

"By the time I'd learned the meditations and stuff, Kennedy had finished off the demons that were terrorizing the shamans tribe, so we went back to Belem, that's where we were living at the time. I kept practicing the meditations and getting into the trance state, but didn't try to cross over into heaven or contact Tara. I was waiting for the right time. Well, actually I was waiting for a time that I thought Kennedy would be out all evening, because it upset her if I ever mentioned Tara. That's what broke Kennedy and me up, she came home while I was still in the trance. I'd crossed over into heaven and I found Tara, but she wouldn't talk to me."

Tears started running down Willows face again, but she kept hold of herself, mainly because of the contact she had with both Buffy and Dawn, they kept the pain from overwhelming her. "See, when Kennedy got home she heard me begging Tara to talk to me. When I first found Tara she felt so happy, but once she realized I was there she started to feel like she was sad. She didn't break the contact, but she wouldn't talk to me, I don't know why? In the trance I was talking out loud, I don't know why I was doing that either, because the contact was really all taking place inside my mind. But what Kennedy heard was me telling Tara that I loved her and missed her so much and that I needed her. Kennedy, of course, blew up and broke the trance. We got into a huge fight and I told her that I did love her, but that I could never love her the way that I still loved Tara. The next day I made arrangements and flew back to London."

"After that time in Brazil I've tried to contact Tara two other times. Once in London and once since I've been back here in L.A.. Each time I've found her, she seemed so happy, until she realized that I was present, then I could feel the sadness taking over her, and she refused to talk to me." The tears were flowing heavily down Willows face by then and her voice was being overcome by her emotions. "Th… That's what up… upset me, Buffy. No… Not that Ta… Tara was talking to Spi… Spike, but that sh… she wo… won't talk to m… me!"

Willow lost all control of herself then and releasing both Buffys and Dawns hands she bent over and buried her face against Buffys breasts and held on to her with both hands as she cried. Buffy wrapped her one arm around Willow and hugged her in tightly. Dawn started brushing her hand up and down Willow back, trying to help sooth her. There were tears in both Buffys and Dawns eyes now, tears for the pain they knew Willow was feeling.

It was then, right in the middle of all this emotional drama, while Dawn was trying to blink the tears out of her eyes that she saw Spike, or thought she did. He was standing next to the bed, a look of sadness on his face and tears in his own eyes. When Dawn made a gasping sound he glanced up from looking at Willow and saw her staring at him and gave her a little smile. Dawn, trying to see better, quickly tried to wipe the tears from her eyes, but by the time she could see clearly, Spike was gone.

Buffy had bent her head down as she whispered quietly to Willow, trying to calm and sooth her. She'd heard Dawn make a slight gasp a few moments earlier, but hadn't paid it any attention, she was so focused on Willow. When she heard Dawn speak quietly, but with a sense of awe in her voice "Buffy?", she lifted her head to see what was the matter and saw Dawn looking not at her or Willow, but at the other side of the bed, over the top of Willow. Buffy turned her head and saw Spike standing there.

Dawn had turned toward Buffy when she saw her turn her head toward where Dawn thought she'd seen Spike. The smile that came to Buffys face was brilliant , it was as if she started to glow, she was so happy. Dawn heard her whisper "Spike! Your back!" and the new tears that started running from her eyes weren't the tears of sadness for Willows pain any longer, they were the tears of joy.

Buffy laid back against the pillows and stared at Spike for a full minute or more, the big smile on her face never leaving. Without looking away from Spike for a moment she finally asked quietly, "Can you see him Dawnie?"

"No, not now" Dawn responded, her voice as quiet as Buffys had been. "But, I think I did, for a few seconds, maybe. Is he, I mean, was he crying?"

Buffy seemed to be listening to something and then her eyes kind of crinkled up and a short bark of laughter escaped her mouth. "Spike says he's not some bloody poofter, getting all weepy. He says he just had something in his eye, dust or something."

A smile spread across Dawns face, but it quickly turned into a wicked grin. She tilted her head to one side a little and raised one eyebrow in a way that was almost identical to the way Spike use to look at people when they said something really dumb. "Well, you just tell Spike that there isn't any dust around, not since Willow and I cleaned the place. And, remind him that I've seen him cry before and I never once thought that made him a poofter. Angels the poofter, and a wanker, and a ponce too." Dawns last sentence was said with such determination and a look on her face that clearly said that she was right, and she didn't want to hear any arguments about it.

Buffy probably should have been upset by the words that Dawn had used, but in her head and her heart she wasn't, because she agreed with Dawn wholeheartedly. Besides that, Spike was laughing his head off. Buffy smiled and started laughing. "He's laughing Dawnie. He said, 'Finally, someone who agrees with him.'" Buffy told her through her laughter.

Willow, who had stopped crying several minutes earlier but had continued to hold on to Buffy because of the comfort it gave her, raised her head from Buffys chest. She had heard Buffy and Dawn talking, but it had taken her a bit to realize that they were talking about Spike. Her first sight was of Buffys face and she could see how happy she seemed to be. Raising herself up to a sitting position she looked at Dawn and could tell that she was feeling happy about something too. Willows face was still all red and blotchy, her eyes were blood shot and her eye lids were puffy. She was still feeling pretty miserable about what she had just confessed to Buffy and Dawn, but seeing them both in such a happy mood seemed to lift her up out of her own sorrow. When she spoke her voice was all croaky and phlegmy, but her curiosity wouldn't allow her to stay silent. "Did I miss something?"

"Spikes back" Dawn told her with a smile.

"Where" Willow asked?

"He's standing right next to you" Buffy told her.

Willow, not even thinking about it, reached out with her hand in the direction Buffy had indicated.

Buffys eyes got wide for a moment and then she burst out into loud laughter. "Will, you've got your hand in the front of Spikes pants. I think he likes it, cause he's smirking."

Willow jerked her hand back as if she had been burned and her face turned a bright red from embarrassment. When Buffy continued to laugh and Dawn started laughing too, she got a pouty look on her face. "Hey, not funny, 'gay' here, remember." When Dawn continued to laugh and Buffy started laughing even harder, Willow blushed again. "Okay, maybe a little, but still, ewww" Willow finally said as an embarrassed smile spread across her lips.

Buffys laughter suddenly cut off sharply and her eyebrows bunched up in a frown and a pout came to her lips. When she spoke there was a touch of jealousy in her voice. "I don't think so Mister" she said sharply. "If anyone's going to be sticking their hands in your pants after your solid again it's going to be me, and no one else." Only after the words were out of her mouth did Buffy realize what she had just said out loud and her face got as red as Willows had been just a few moments earlier.

Willow wasn't sure what Buffy had been responding to, and she was certain that she didn't want to know. Moving quickly she jumped off the bed next to Buffy and hurried around the bed so that she was standing next to Dawn, but with Dawn between her and Buffy.

Dawn didn't know what had prompted Buffys change in behavior or her words either, but was just as certain as Willow that she didn't want to know. Instead of sitting there, causing more embarrassment for Buffy, Dawn got off the bed also and turning took Willow by the arm and gently led her away toward the kitchen. When they got to the kitchen Dawn nudged Willow toward the bathroom. "Why don't you go wash your face while I start dinner." Just as Willow got to the bathroom door, Dawn called out, her voice excited and full of happiness, "What do you say to microwaved fried chicken and macaroni and cheese. We can have chocolate cake and ice cream for dessert?"

(09/05)

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	11. It Hurts 11

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It Hurts (So Bad) - 11

By the time Willow came out of the bathroom, she had just spent the past twenty minutes holding cold washcloths against her face to reduce the puffiness, the chicken had finished heating in the microwave and the macaroni was done. Once Dawn added some butter, a splash of milk and the powdered cheese, mixed it all up, dinner was ready. Looking over and seeing Buffy talking quietly, to the emptiness beside her bed, Dawn had a quiet conversation with Willow. Dawn made up a plate of chicken, macaroni with cheese, and a diet Coke, putting everything on a tray. Willow grabbed up a stack of text books and carried them over to the bed and set them down on the bed next to Buffy. When Buffy gave her a puzzled look of inquiry, Willow just shrugged her shoulders. When Dawn got to the bed she set the tray down half on Buffys lap and half on the stack of books. The books gave the tray stability and prevented it from slipping off of Buffys lap. Dawn and Willow then went back to the kitchen, fixed up plates for themselves and sitting down at the kitchen table started eating their dinner. Dawn would have liked to have eaten dinner with Buffy, especially after all the emotions that had already been shared that afternoon. But she figured that Buffy would really prefer to have the time alone with Spike. Looking over her shoulder at Buffy, seeing her eating, talking, smiling, laughing, Dawn was sure she had made the right decision.

When dinner was done, Dawn collected the tray and dirty dishes from Buffy and carried them back to the kitchen. While Willow washed up the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen, Dawn got out her school books and did her homework while sitting at the kitchen table. Dawn sat at the table in a way so that all she had to do is glance up to see how Buffy was doing. During the hour it took her to complete her homework, Dawn noticed two important things. One was the fact that Buffy seemed to be talking or listening happily the whole time. The other thing she noticed was that during the entire hour, Buffy never looked at or touched the bottle of whiskey that was sitting next to her on the nightstand.

With her homework done, Dawn went over to join Willow sitting on the couch. Willow was busy reading a text book. She was busily underlining lines of text with either red or green ink and highlighting others with a yellow highlighter. Willow had some kind of bizarre method of color coding her study notes, but it obviously worked for her, because the lowest grade that Dawn had ever seen Willow get was an A, instead of her usual A+.

Since Willow was busy, Dawn asked if she could use her computer to check her e-mail. Once she logged on she found that she had over a dozen e-mails waiting for her. Most of them were from friends at school and she answered them right away. One, that she ignored until last, was from Giles. The last e-mail that she had received from Giles was two months ago and she had deleted it without reading it. But receiving an e-mail from Giles at this time, after all that had happened during the past week, both peaked her curiosity and caused her concern. Glancing over at Willow, Dawn wondered if she had written to Giles and told him about Buffys injury, or more importantly, about Spike.

Dawn sat quietly for almost ten minutes staring at the header of the e-mail from Giles before she finally clicked on it to open the e-mail. Reading through it quickly it seemed to be innocent enough. Giles asked how she was doing, how was school, how was the weather. He told her that he was doing fine and that the work with the Council was keeping him busy. Everything in the e-mail was innocuous enough until she got to the last sentence. Giles had added an inquiry, almost as if it was an after thought, asking how Buffy was doing? Reading that sentence sent a chill down Dawns spine.

In the beginning, eight months previously, Giles had sent her e-mails weekly. Mostly they had been efforts to justify his behavior and his reasons for not informing Buffy, or Dawn, of the fact that Spike had returned to life, or unlife, after the closing of the Hellmouth. Dawn had responded to the early ones, mostly in anger, telling Giles he had betrayed Buffy and that he'd had no right to do what he did, no matter what kind of justification he might have thought he had to protect Buffy from making a mistake that would ruin her life, because it was Buffys life to live or ruin, not his. After two months Dawn had stopped responding all together and had eventually changed her e-mail address. When she had received an e-mail from him two months previously on her new e-mail account she had deleted it without even reading it. When a Christmas card had arrived just before Christmas, Dawn had thought of marking it 'Mail Refused' and sending it back, but because Willows name was on it along with her own she had just given it to Willow without comment and had refused to even look at it.

Dawn turned toward Willow and sat watching her. She kept wondering if Willow had contacted Giles and what she had told him. Feelings of mistrust and betrayal started to build up inside of her and the anger started to build. The silence in the room, except for Buffy having a quiet one sided conversation with Spike, was deafening.

When Willow finally noticed that Dawn wasn't typing on the computer any longer she looked up from her books to see what Dawn was doing. When she saw the look on Dawns face she knew that something was very wrong, and that Dawn was angry, at her. Glancing over at the computer she could just make out that there was an open e-mail on the screen. Not knowing what the problem was, but resolving to face it before things got worse, Willow set her book aside and slipping off the couch knelt down on the floor next to Dawn. Glancing at the e-mail she could see that it was from Giles. Reading through it quickly she still couldn't see what was wrong. Dawn hadn't said a word to her since she knelt down next to her or while she read the e-mail, but Willow could see that Dawn was clenching her jaws together and that she was very angry.

Not knowing what else to do or say, Willow asked "Dawn, what's wrong?"

Dawn still didn't say anything, she just pointed at the last line of Giles e-mail.

Willow reread the last line of the e-mail and still not seeing what was wrong, asked again "What is it? What's wrong?"

Dawn growled out a response to Willow. She knew she was angry and she knew she sounded harsh. She also knew that she didn't have any proof that Willow had done anything wrong. But still, the sudden e-mail from Giles asking how Buffy was doing had her upset and on edge. "Did you contact Giles? Did you tell him about Buffy? Did you tell him about Spike?" Dawns last question was almost like a challenge.

Willow knew that she couldn't say anything to Dawn to make her believe she hadn't done anything wrong, she had to show her. Willow quickly logged Dawn off of the computer and logged herself in. She then logged into her e-mail program and showed Dawn a list of her e-mail folders. She then opened the folder labeled 'Giles'. She scrolled down the e-mails until she got to the last four. Pointing to the one fourth from the bottom she pointed out the date. "That was the last e-mail Giles sent me before Buffy got hurt. It's dated five days before she was hurt. The e-mail after it is dated the next day and it's my response. The second from the bottom was sent late Saturday evening, London time, from Giles home e-mail address. The last e-mail is my response. If you check the date and time you'll see that I didn't respond until early Sunday afternoon, our time. I was with you and Buffy all day Saturday and didn't touch my computer that whole day.

Willow then backed up her cursor and clicked on the e-mail that Giles had sent to her on the past Saturday and opened it up to be read. "Dawn, you've known all along that I have kept in touch with Giles and with Xander. Every e-mail that Giles has sent to me is listed and every response is right below it. You can read them all if you want, you can read Xander's too. I've even got two from Angel that you can read if you want too. I don't have anything to hide from you Dawn. If you read through the ones we wrote to each other over the summer, mostly what you'll read is the two of us beating our breasts and agreeing with each other that we only did what we did because we wanted to protect Buffy so that she could be happy."

When Dawn made a snorting noise of obvious disagreement, Willow continued. "I know you think we were both wrong Dawn, but these e-mails were just the two of us trying to justify to each other what we had done. That doesn't mean we were right to do it, it just means that we thought we were right. After you changed your e-mail address and changed your phone service so that you couldn't receive any overseas phone calls, Giles got a little belligerent about you refusing to have any contact with him, especially since he was paying for everything. I know you remember our conversation about that topic. If you read my response to Giles you'll see that I wrote him exactly what you said, that if he wanted to cut off the money to support you and Buffy that he could damned well go ahead and do it, because you would beg in the streets before you would beg him for a dime. Giles has never mentioned money for you or Buffy again."

Willow knew that Dawn was listening to what she was saying, even though she continued to look angrily at the computer screen. "After I came to see Buffy at the end of the summer and saw how bad of shape she was in, I wrote Giles all about it and about the agreement that Buffy and I had made. The one about her eating or being sent to a hospital and me staying away from her. If you read any of the e-mails after that time you'll see that Giles has voiced nothing but concern about both you and Buffy. Dawn, I know your angry with Giles, but I also know that you know he loves you. Both you and Buffy."

Hearing that Giles loved both her and Buffy just seemed to piss her off even more. Dawn nearly jumped up from where she was sitting on the floor and stormed into the kitchen. Jerking open the refrigerator door hard enough to make the bottles of condiments on the door rattle, Dawn stared inside of it for a good five minutes. When she finally peeked out from behind the door she could see that Willow was still kneeling on the floor in front of her computer, waiting for Dawn to return. Dawn reached inside and grabbed a can of diet Coke for herself and a can of diet caffeine free Coke for Willow, because caffeine and Willow didn't mix to well, except early in the morning to wake her up and get her moving.

When Dawn came back and sat down where she had been sitting before, she set the can of soda for Willow down in front of her. Opening her own can she took a sip, then sat staring at the can in her hand for over a minute before speaking in a very quiet and controlled tone of voice. "You don't get it do you Will, what Giles did to Buffy? You were all in it together, but you know and I know and Buffy knows that it was Giles that was behind it all, keeping it secret that Spike was back. The rest of you might have wanted to keep it a secret, but it was Giles that made it happen." Glancing over at Willows face, Dawn could see the pain and regret in her eyes, but she could also see the recognition of the truth of her statement.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, then taking a sip of soda, staring at the can in her hand, taking another deep breath and letting it out. "See, for me, it's not so important. Not being a real girl, and all that, I guess it doesn't really matter. All my thoughts and feelings and memories about Giles and the rest of you, they don't count, they were just put into my head by a bunch of dumb old monks. In the real world I've only been alive for a little less than four years. But Buffy, her thoughts and feelings and memories about all you guys were real." Dawn took another small sip of soda, then continued. "You know, I've never met my Dad, Hank Summers, I mean. Sure I have memories of him, but their fake memories. I've never actually met him though. But Buffy, she remembers him. She remembers him leaving her and Mom and how much it hurt her. She remembers loving Angel and having to send him to hell, then coming back and leaving her. She remembers Riley, and him leaving her too. She remembers the pain of loosing Mom, how much it hurt. She remembers dying and going to heaven, and being ripped out. She remembers Giles leaving her when she was just barely holding on to her life and sanity, because he wanted her to grow up and learn to make her own decisions. She remembers needing Spike when she was fighting the First and Giles plotting to murder him because he didn't like her decision not to send Spike away. She remembers all of us kicking her out of her own home while the First was trying to destroy us, because we said we couldn't trust her because she trusted Spike. She also remembers that Spike died to save her, and us, and the world. You have no idea how much that hurt her, Will, no idea at all. But, do you know what hurt her worse? Worse than all those other things put together. Spike coming back and all of you betraying her trust, lying to her, because you all just wanted her to be happy. That's what hurt the most, Giles, and the rest of you, ripping her heart out because you just wanted her to 'Be Happy'."

Another tear ran down Dawns face and with the back of her hand she wiped it away. Looking up and over at Buffy in her bed, she watched for a few moments. Nodding her head toward the bed, she continued again. "See that, see Buffy over there, talking to ghost Spike or spirit Spike or whatever he is Spike? Do you see her, 'being happy'? If she had known that Spike was back, even when he was still a ghost, she would have gone to him, she wouldn't have cared. Okay, not true, she would have cared if he was a ghost, but it wouldn't have mattered, she would have still gone to him and been with him, and she would have been happy. When he became solid again, she would have been there, and she would have been happy. If he'd still gone into that alley with Angel, she would have gone with him, maybe she would have saved him or maybe she would have died with him, but she would have been happy. Do you get it Will, she would have been happy, with Spike. But Giles took that away from her. Giles and Angel, and the rest of you."

A steady stream of tears started to flow down Dawns cheeks. She didn't sob or make any other sounds, but the tears kept flowing. Willow felt her own tears in her eyes but wiped them away quickly. The one thing she didn't need to do right now was to start another crying fest like she'd had that afternoon. Hearing Dawn say that she wasn't a real girl and that she didn't really matter had been a stab to her heart. She had never known that Dawn felt that way about herself or that she thought that the only reason anyone cared about her at all was because some monks had put those thoughts in their heads, and that they weren't really true. Willow loved Dawn and she knew in her heart that those feelings were real and true. Reaching out she pulled Dawn into her arms and held her while she shed her silent tears.

When Dawn pulled back from Willow the tears had stopped and she quickly wiped the tear tracks from her face with her hands. Willow reached out and took both of Dawns hands in hers. "What you said earlier" Willow said, "about taking Buffys chance for happiness away from her? You were right, we did. I didn't understand that's what we were doing, but that's not a good enough excuse anymore. We took Buffys choices away from her by not telling her the truth, and by doing that we betrayed her trust in us. I know you don't want to hear it, but I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I wasn't the kind of friend that Buffy deserves. I know you don't totally trust me Dawn, and I understand that, I really do. Trust is something a person earns and I pretty much used up all my credit with you and with Buffy. But I want you to trust me Dawn. I want to earn your trust again." Letting go of Dawns hands Willow turned back to her computer bringing up the e-mails from Giles again. "I'd like you to read these e-mails, the last two anyway. I think the one from Giles will give you some ideas about how he feels and what he was thinking just a few days ago. Then when you read the one I sent to him you'll see that I didn't break your trust or Buffys either."

When Willow got up from the floor and sat back down on the couch, picking up her text book and going back to her studies, Dawn watched her for a minute trying to decide what to do. With some trepidation, she clicked on the e-mail from Giles to Willow and started to read it. The beginning of the e-mail was a note of concern, Giles mentioned that he had tried to phone her the previous two nights and there was no answer. He inquired if everything was alright. He then went on to admit that he was feeling a bit maudlin that evening, sitting at home alone, having one drink to many no doubt. He told Willow a few things that had been going on with the Council the past week that he thought she might be interested in knowing. He added a 'Hello' from one of the witch's from the coven who he had spoken to recently. But it was the last paragraph that shocked Dawn the most. Giles had written, "I find myself praying at night for a forgiveness that I truly know I do not deserve. But, without the prayer, without the hope of forgiveness, I believe the desolation of my life would overwhelm me. Do you think that it is possible that one day they will forgive me?" The e-mail ended on that note.

Dawn next read the e-mail that Willow had sent to Giles in response. Willow had told Giles that her phone service was apparently having problems with their satellites which was interfering with overseas calls. She told him that she was sorry that he was not feeling very chipper, but advised him that drinking alone wasn't the answer. She responded to a couple of the things he had mentioned about the Council and returned the 'Hello' to the witch from the cove. Her response to his last paragraph was similar to his. Willow had written, "Like you, I pray each day that somehow, someway, that I will be able to earn both Buffys and Dawns forgiveness. Whether or not this is even possible, I don't know. But I do know that I will keep trying and keep praying in the hope that someday I will earn their trust and friendship again."

Sitting there thinking about both Giles and Willows e-mails fanned a small spark within Dawns heart that she wasn't yet ready to acknowledge. Quickly she read through both e-mails again. In nether message was there any sign of subterfuge or deceit, well, except for Willow claiming problems with her phone. Dawn knew that the only problem with Willows phone for the past week was that she had turned it off that first morning and not turned it back on yet. The last paragraphs in both messages bothered her at a deeper level. Because Willow had told her she was free to do so, Dawn started clicking on messages from both Giles and Willow. She stayed away from the summer months as Willow had advised, not wanting to become angry over things that had been written months in the past. For the next two hours Dawn read through the e-mails and spent time thinking about what she had been reading. Two things became readily apparent. Both Giles and Willow had repeatedly vouched their remorse over what they had done to Buffy and their abiding sorrow over the loss of her friendship and regard. The second most apparent consideration was that neither one of them seemed to fully grasp 'why' what they did hurt Buffy so badly.

Thinking this over, Dawn had to admit that Willow had really been trying the past week. Except for her screw-up that afternoon, which even Dawn had to admit was more a case of misunderstanding and emotional overload than an attempt to hurt Buffy. But still, she had been trying. Ever since Dawn had made her write on the wall last week, Willows behavior, attitude and understanding had seemed to undergo a significant change. For the first time Willow seemed to actually understand 'why' loosing Spike had hurt Buffy so much. But more importantly she seemed to be understanding 'why' keeping Spikes return a secret had been such a monumental betrayal of Buffys love and friendship.

After Spikes death at the Hellmouth, Buffy had told them about their last minutes together. She'd told them all that as Spike was dying she had finally admitted to him that she loved him, and that he hadn't believed her. They had all seen how devastated Buffy had been by his death. Buffy had told repeatedly, to anyone who would listen, how much it hurt her that Spike had died believing that she didn't love him and that her last words to him were a lie.

None of them had ever understood how much Buffy regretted not having told Spike the truth about her feelings for him before it was to late, to late for him to believe her. None of them had ever understood that the only reason Buffy had stopped talking to them about Spike was because 'she' understood that they didn't want to talk about Spike. None of them had ever understood that each time one of them had told her it was time for her to 'move on' with her life, to 'be happy', it was like a knife stab to her heart. Because what they were really saying to her was that she should put Spike into the past and 'forget' about him. None of them had ever understood that all of Buffys 'smiley faces' and 'moving on' with her life was just Buffy pretending, to make them happy.

So, in a sad sad way, it was no wonder that none of them ever understood that hiding the knowledge that Spike had returned, as a ghost or a real person. Depriving Buffy of the opportunity to see him again, to tell him that she had meant it when she told him she loved him. That he had died again, still thinking that Buffy didn't love him. They never understood how much that hurt her. No wonder they never understood that by doing this they had betrayed Buffys love for them at such a deep level that it had broken her. Broken her in such a way that the only love she had left in her was the love she continued to feel for Spike.

Thinking about this, about what she had forced Willow to do and how that had seemed to open her mind and heart to the truth of what they had done to Buffy, made Dawn wonder if she should give Giles the same chance. Before she let herself over think the situation or talk herself out of it, Dawn closed out Willows e-mail and reopened her own. She pulled up the e-mail she had received from Giles and clicked on the 'respond' button. After deleting everything that Giles had written, except for the opening, "My Dearest Dawn", She added a couple of blank lines and started typing:

Giles,

This is a test. You take the test and pass the test, 'maybe' we can talk.

You don't take the test or don't pass the test, we've got 'nothing' to say to each other.

First rule: I'm sending you something I want you to type out a thousand times.

Second rule: Each time you type it out I want you to say the words out-loud as you type them.

If you don't do this the way I've asked you to do this, believe me "I'll Know"!

This is what I want you to type:

Buffy loves Spike! Buffy will always love Spike! Buffy will love Spike until the end of the world!

D.

When Dawn finished her message she hesitated before sending it. She looked over at Willow for a few moments before speaking. "Willow, come look at this."

When Willow set down her book and moved to kneel on the floor next to her, Dawn pointed out the message for her to read. "Do you think he'll do it?"

Willow read the message then smiled at Dawn and told her "He'll do it. But can I add something at the bottom?"

When Dawn nodded her head, Willow turned the laptop in her direction and started typing.

P.S. I'm up to 2600, and I have to do it on a wall, with a pencil.

W.

When Dawn saw what Willow had added she nodded her head in satisfaction , then clicked on the 'Send' button. She then looked at her watch and realized it was the nearly 6AM in London. She wondered if Giles checked his e-mail before he left his home for the Council offices or if he checked them at night after getting home. Either way, all she could do is wait to see what happens next.

(09/05)

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	12. It Hurts 12

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It Hurts (So Bad) - 12

When Dawn undressed and crawled into her sleeping bag at midnight she was physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. Willow was still reading, marking up her text book and taking notes. Buffy was still talking quietly to Spike. When she woke up sometime in the middle of the night, all the lights were out, Willow was wrapped up in a blanket sleeping, and as she fell back to sleep she could hear Buffy still talking to Spike.

When her little alarm clock woke her at 7:30, Dawn got up and made her way quietly to the bathroom. After taking care of her needs and washing up, she came back out to the living room and taking fresh cloths from one of her bags she got dressed. Still feeling dopey she decided that she had to have some coffee or she would never make it to school and through the morning. Still being very quiet she started a pot of coffee and prepared the ingredients, (sugar, creamer and vanilla) in a mug. While the coffee was still brewing Dawn decided to see if Giles had made any response to her e-mail yet.

Opening up the laptop and starting it took several minutes, being a Windows machine it always took awhile to boot up. By the time the computer was ready to be used, the coffee had finished, Dawn had poured herself a mug full and had already seated herself comfortably on the floor in front of it. She established a connection through the wi-fi modem and launched her e-mail program. As soon as the program opened there was a flashing icon indicating that she had mail. Clicking on the 'In Box' button, Dawn soon found herself looking at a list of fourteen messages, all from Giles. Opening the first message, Dawn read:

….  
My Dearest Dawn,

Thank You for this opportunity. Although I do not understand the nature of this test at this point, rest assured that I do not hesitate to fulfill your requirements. I shall start immediately and work diligently to complete the assigned task.

There is one minor problem that I hope is not too inconvenient. The mail program that I use on my home computer limit's the number of lines of text it will allow. As you may remember, my knowledge of computers is limited, therefore I do not know how to circumvent this problem. My solution to the problem is to send you packets containing fifty repetitions of the required text in each packet. Hopefully this will meet with your approval.

Most Sincerely Yours,

R. Giles  
….  
Following the message was fifty lines of the required text.

Buffy loves Spike! Buffy will always love Spike! Buffy will love Spike until the end of the world!

The time stamp on the e-mail showed that it was sent at 7:44AM, London time.

Thinking about the time that she had sent the original e-mail to Giles the night before, Dawn figured that Giles must have read it somewhere around 7:00 - 7:15AM, his time, and had started immediately. A small smile touched her lips. Dawn was pleased that Giles hadn't spent hours trying to decipher the nature of the test, but had started it without question.

Dawn opened the next message and found fifty lines of the required text. The next two messages were the same. By checking the time stamps on each message Dawn found that it was taking Giles approximately fifteen minutes to complete each message. When she opened the fifth message she saw that it had taken a little longer, twenty minutes. The sixth message took twenty-eight minutes, the seventh took thirty-six minutes, the eighth took forty-seven minutes, the tenth took fifty-six minutes.

The smile on Dawns face had broadened widely and if anyone had been awake to see the glint in her eyes they would have called it 'wicked'. There were a number of obvious reasons that could account for the time between the messages taking longer and longer, boredom, tired hands and fingers, the need for bathroom breaks, phone calls, and any number of other mundane reasons. But, if what was happening was what Dawn wanted to happen, then the test was working. Only time would tell.

When Dawn opened the eleventh message the time stamp said 12:04PM. She could see immediately that instead of a continuation of the requires text there was a message at the top of the page, which she read immediately.  
….  
Dearest Dawn,

As you can see I have reached the halfway mark. But, unfortunately, I must take a slight pause to mend fences. My secretary, Ms. Robinson, called to remind me that I had a 1PM meeting scheduled for today and I fear that I was churlishly rude to her for no other reason than doing her job. I must now call her back and apologize to her, ask her to extend my apologies to the Council staff, and for a rescheduling of the meeting on Friday or the following Monday. I will return to the task at hand as soon as possible.

P.S. - As a note, I find myself in a highly agitated state. I will not question you as too the intention of this test at this time, but I must confess that it is having a disturbing effect.

Giles  
….

Dawn found herself feeling so pleased with the note from Giles that she felt she deserved another cup of coffee. Looking at her watch she realized that she was already late leaving for school and could not possibly make it there on time. Shrugging her shoulders, she told herself that some thing's are more important than going to school. After fixing herself another mug of coffee she returned to the computer and opened the next message. The time stamp of the twelfth message was 1:24PM and contained fifty repetitions of the required text. The thirteenth message was the same, with a time stamp of 2:04PM. The fourteenth and final message was time stamped 3:26PM and also contained nothing but the required text. But looking at the time difference between the messages sent a message to Dawn all of their own. From the other side of the world Dawn could hear in her mind the wall of denial that Giles surrounded himself with cracking.

Thinking about the effect the test was having on Giles made Dawn think about the effect it had on Willow over the past week. Granted, that first time that Willow had written on the wall had been motivated by threats and emotional trauma, but still she had completed the task in four and a half hours. Which in itself was pretty amazing. Also granted was the fact that Willows initial insight had been limited to finally understanding the depth of Buffys love for Spike and that it wasn't something that would ever go away because of the disapproval or wishful thinking of others.

But over the past week as Willow made her own self-imposed trips out into the hallway to write more repetitions of the statement of Buffys love for Spike, she had seemed to be gaining a deeper, wider, understanding of Buffys love and her reasons for feeling that Willow and the others had betrayed her at such a deep and fundamental level. The last time that Willow had gone out into the hallway to write was Monday night. She had only been out there for over an hour and had only added a hundred new repetitions. But when she came back into the apartment it had been easy to see that she had been crying and that she was deeply affected by it.

Dawn reluctantly admitted to herself that when she wasn't mad at Willow, she loved her deeply. But she also admitted that Willow had faults as big as canyons. One of her biggest being her need to fix other peoples lives so that they could 'be happy'. How many times had Willow tried to fix things through magic, manipulation and lies that had ended up as a disaster? The only way that Willow ever seemed to see that what she was doing was wrong was when someone beat her over the head with it. Fortunately, she hadn't used magic to try to fix someone else's life for a long time. But she was still guilty of using manipulation and lies when she'd tried to control Buffys life. Again, just thinking about it made Dawn angry and she had to force her thoughts away from it.

"Willow has changed. Willow is trying. Willow is making progress. Willow wants to understand." Dawn tried to tell herself. Then in a wave of anger another thought popped to the front of Dawns thoughts, "God damn it! Willow needs a tattoo on the back of her hand that say's "Don't Fuck With Other Peoples Lives!"

Dawn found herself breathing heavily and glaring over at Willow sleeping on the couch. Taking deep breaths and clearing her mind she calmed herself down. "God, I'm so tired of being angry!" Dawn told herself. Taking more deep breaths to calm herself, another thought came to mind. With Willow moving toward 'enlightenment' and hopefully Giles too, Dawn wondered if she should try to put all her thoughts in order. Maybe type them up so Willow and Giles could read them. Stay away from the anger and stick to the facts and the consequences of what had happened. Dawn knew that Willow was nearly there because of what had happened during the past week. But Giles, without the knowledge of Buffys injury, or of invisible Spike and his affect on Buffy, he might be harder to convince.

Dawn had tried to make all of them understand what they had done and why it had been so wrong in the past, but it had always turned into an angry rant and had never pierced their walls of denial. Living with Willow, out of necessity, they had reached a silent agreement to not discuss it at all. At least until this past week. With Giles, Dawn had given up trying to communicate with him that summer. With Xander, Dawn had given up on him that night in this apartment when he had said such horrible things to Buffy about Spike. Not once since she had sent him away had Dawn had any form of communication with Xander. Not by phone, e-mail, letter or smoke signal. Dawns last and final words to Xander were just before Willow took him to the airport. Xander had stood there in the hotel suite they had all been sharing, opening his arms to Dawn as if he expected her to come to him and give him a good-by hug. Instead, Dawn had looked him in the eyes and told him coldly, "You're a wanker, Xander" and had turned her back on him and gone to her room.

Pushing thoughts of Xander away, Dawn thoughts turned next to Andrew. Andrew was a mystery that Dawn couldn't figure out. She knew Andrew, or had thought she did, and for the life of her she couldn't understand how he had kept the secret of Spike returning to life, or unlife, from her. She knew that Andrew nearly worshiped Spike and thought he was the coolest, most exciting, handsomest, greatest vampire/hero/Champion in the world. When Spike had died at the Hellmouth, Andrew had openly cried over his loss. She knew that somehow Giles must have threatened or intimidated Andrew into not telling Dawn and Buffy. Whatever Giles had done or said it must have been very serious to keep Andrew quiet. Dawn wondered if she should give Andrew a break and contact him. She had seen the letter that Andrew had sent to Buffy when he apologized to her for not telling her about Spikes return. She had seen the tear marks on the paper that had smeared some of the words he had written. Dawn let herself admit that she had missed the little nerd.

With her mind paying a visit to all of the people that had been involved in the 'great cover-up', Angel came to Dawns mind last. Dawn knew how she felt about Angel. Hating Angel was the one place her anger felt a hundred percent justified. Dawn knew in her heart, without a doubt, that Angel was the reason why Spike had never contacted her or Buffy. Dawn didn't know what Angel had said or done to stop Spike from contacting them, but she knew it was something bad, something evil.

With her mind roaming about, Dawn hadn't noticed the passage of time. When she heard a 'ping' sound come from the computer she looked down and could see that a new e-mail had just arrived. Opening the e-mail she saw that it was from Giles and that the time stamp was 4:51PM. Looking down at her watch the time read 8:52AM. It had taken Giles over nine hours to type and send seven hundred lines of the 'Buffy loves Spike' message. The smile that spread across Dawns face showed pure satisfaction.

Dawn knew that it wasn't the words of the 'Buffy loves Spike' message themselves that had taken Giles so long to type. She'd seen him at both a typewriter and a computer keyboard and knew that his typing skills were excellent. He could type page after page of a report with ease and without error. It was the subliminal message within the text that had caused the long delays between packets. Having to type the words of the message and say them out loud as he typed had forced his mind, his heart and his soul, to admit to the truth of the words. Admitting to the truth of the words had forced him to admit to himself that he had been wrong when he withheld from Buffy the knowledge that Spike had returned after the Hellmouth. Giles hated to be wrong. Giles hated to admit he was wrong. But more importantly, Giles would have hated to admit to himself that it was because of his own actions and behavior that he had broken the trust between himself and Buffy. Giles would have hated to have to admit to himself that all of the reasons and excuses regarding Spike that he had used as justifications for his action were just that, selfish reasons and insupportable excuses. But Dawn also knew that Giles must have been at least part of the way toward these realizations for the test to have effected him so strongly, so quickly.

Urged on by her perceived success with Giles, Dawn minimized the e-mail program, but left the connection open so that she would be aware of any incoming messages. She then opened up her word processing program and started typing out her thoughts. At first the going was a little slow, trying to keep the anger out of her message was difficult. She finally got past that and it was as if her thoughts were flowing from her mind to her finger tips to the keyboard. Sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph appeared on the computer screen. Dawn was in the middle of her fourth page of typing before she was brought out of her thoughts and back to reality by the 'ping' sound of an incoming e-mail message.

The sound of Dawn typing on the keyboard was actually a soothing sound to Willow and had pushed her deeper into sleep than before. I was the 'ping' of the incoming e-mail and the sudden stop in typing that brought her out of her sleep. Opening her eyes and seeing Dawn sitting in front of her computer didn't surprise her, Willows unconscious mind had told her someone was typing at the computer. What surprised her was seeing Dawn dressed for school, and not being at school. Sitting up quickly, glancing over at Buffy and then back at Dawn, Willow asked with a tone of urgency in her voice, "Is something wrong?"

Dawn looked over at Willow and gave her a smile before telling her, "Nothings wrong, in fact things are really good." Seeing the puzzled look on Willows face, Dawn clarified, "Giles just sent another e-mail. It's taken him over ten hours to send me seven hundred and fifty copies of the 'Buffy loves Spike' message."

Willow wasn't sure why Dawn was smiling, because she thought Dawn must be disappointed in the slow response from Giles. Wanting to make Dawn feel better, Willow told her "You know, I'm sure Giles meant to do better Dawnie. It's just that with being at the Council all day, and working, he probably couldn't spend a lot of time on it. I'm sure that when he gets home he'll finish it up in no time." Willow gave Dawn an encouraging smile to try to cheer her up, just in case she was disappointed.

Dawn started laughing, but seeing the puzzled look return to Willows face she choked off the laughter so that she could explain. "Giles didn't go to the Council today. He stayed home all day to work on the test. See Will, the longer it takes him the more effect the test has on him."

The puzzlement that Willow had been feeling before changed to total confusion. Voicing her confusion, she said "I don't understand?"

"See Will, the whole point of the test is to drum a subliminal message into someone's brain. The message itself isn't as important as the subliminal message, because the subliminal message works on a person at an subconscious level" Dawn explained.

Willow knew about subliminal messages, she did a report on them in the seventh grade. But what she remembered about them was how movie theaters flashed pictures of popcorn and soda and candy at a really high speed so that a person barely knew they were seeing them, but seeing them made them hungry and thirsty and they'd go buy stuff to eat and drink. But that couldn't be what Dawn was talking about, could it?

Dawn had continued talking while Willows mind chased down what she remembered about subliminal messages. When she tuned back in, Dawn was saying "… so the longer it takes Giles to write out the messages the stronger the subliminal message he gets from the message."

Willow knew that she had missed something, but didn't know what. Still trying to understand, she said again "I don't understand?"

Dawn could see it clearly that Willow didn't understand what she was saying about Giles and how the subliminal message had been working on him all day as he typed out the "Buffy loves Spike" message. How it had been breaking through at a subconscious level and making him understand something he had refused to accept previously. But if she didn't understand how it was working on Giles, then how did she understand how the message had worked on her? Or did she understand? Dawn had thought, based on what Willow had said and her behavior the past week that she did, but now she wasn't sure.

Dawn got up from the floor and walked into the kitchen where she filled a mug full of coffee and brought it back to Willow. While Willow was taking a few sips of the coffee to wake herself up, Dawn sat back down on the floor in front of the computer. Giving Willow another minute to wake up, Dawn used the time to think about what she wanted to ask her. "Will, last week when I asked you to write on the wall" Dawn asked cautiously "how did you do that? Cause I've been thinking about it and I wondered how you could write all that out, a thousand lines, in a little less than four and a half hours, plus go out and get us some coffee. I mean, Giles has been working on it for ten hours and hasn't finished yet."

Willow didn't even hesitate with her answer. "Oh, the writing part was easy. See, there were only eighteen words in the message, and if you count out the letters plus spaces and punctuation, there were only ninety-nine of them to remember. So once I had all of them memorized, it was like writing just one long word, and I can write really fast when I want too. It was the saying the sentences out loud that slowed me down."

Dawn digested that for a few moments, then asked "When you were writing the sentences out, what were you thinking?"

"I wasn't really thinking about anything while I was doing it Dawnie" Willow explained. "I only thought about it after I was done. You know, while I went to get the coffee."

"What were you thinking, when you were thinking about it" Dawn asked? "I remember asking you if you now knew what love was and you told me you did."

"I was thinking that Buffy loves Spike and that she will always love Spike, and even though he's dead now she will continue to love him forever. It's how I feel about Tara, because I'll always love Tara." Willow told her.

"Okay, what about the second time you went out and wrote on the wall? I didn't tell you to do it that time, but you went out and did it anyway, and that second time it took you five hours to write it a thousand times" Dawn commented casually. "I'd think that the second time you'd have been even faster. And the third time you were out there for three hours, but you only wrote five hundred lines. What happened?"

"Well the second time I went out" Willow told Dawn, "I was feeling kind of guilty. Buffy had been drinking a lot that day and was talking to Spike, and I was just sort of feeling bad for her, like it was partly my fault that she wasn't talking to him for real, you know what I mean. When I went out there I'd really only intended to write a few hundred lines, but I kept feeling guilty about everything, so I just kept writing until I felt better. I guess that's what made me slower that time, thinking about feeling guilty."

It was then that a light seemed to light up in Willows mind and a look of sudden comprehension spread across her face. Looking over at Dawn she suddenly seemed excited. "Oh, I get it. That's what you meant by subliminal message. Because see, after that I couldn't stop thinking about what I'd written and I kept feeling guilty. On Saturday when Buffy was feeling better and was eating and talking to us and even laughed a little a couple of times, it made me feel really good. But then she started drinking again and talking to Spike again, and I started feeling bad again. That's when I went out the third time. I started writing thinking that it would make me feel better, sort of like saying 'I'm sorry', but it didn't. The more I wrote the worse I felt. That's why I stopped at five hundred."

Dawn was watching Willow closely and could see that she had tears starting to form in her eyes. "Will, you keep telling me that writing on the wall was making you feel bad, and I can understand that alright. But what were you thinking?"

"You know Dawnie" Willow said as a tear escaped her eye and ran down her cheek, "you told us that what we did, not telling Buffy about Spike, was a bad thing. But I couldn't understand that, because we weren't trying to hurt Buffy, none of us were. All any of us wanted was for her to be happy. When Giles told us that Angel had apparently gone evil when he took over Wolfram and Hart, we all went along with that, even Buffy didn't argue about it. So when we found out that Spike was back and working with Angel, we all thought that he had to be evil too. That's why we didn't tell Buffy, because we thought it would have hurt her to know that Spike was back and he was evil again. But when I started writing that stuff on the wall I kept thinking about how much Buffy loved Spike. I started thinking that we hadn't really know for sure that Spike was evil again or not. It was only because he was with Angel that we thought so, well at least that's why I thought so anyway. Then I started thinking about Tara, and I kept wondering what I would have thought if I'd found out that she'd come back to life and was with Angel for some reason. I mean I knew that Tara was in Heaven, but what if she did come back and for some reason was with Angel. I know that I would never have thought that she came back evil, no matter what. So that made me think that maybe Spike wasn't evil too, but for some reason had to stay with Angel. Or maybe even Angel wasn't really evil and Spike had to stay with him because he was needed to do something important. I mean I realize that we know all of that is true now, about Spike and Angel not being evil. But we didn't know that then. But I kept thinking about Tara and knowing that I would never have thought she was evil, so why did I think that Spike was evil. Especially after he'd died to save the world. So I started thinking that we really had been wrong to not tell Buffy that Spike was back and alive again, and the more I thought about it the more guilty I felt about not telling Buffy the truth."

Tears were now running down Willows face freely, her voice was choked with emotion but she continued to talk to Dawn. "It was Monday, the last time I went out to write on the wall, that everything sort of hit me real hard. Buffy had been pretty happy all day and she was in a really good mood after you brought those cheeseburgers and fries home. Even when she started drinking, she didn't seem to be drinking as much as before, and when she started talking to Spike she seemed happy about that too. I'd been watching her and it sort of hit me that the only times I could really remember Buffy being happy in the past couple of years were the past few days when she was talking to an imaginary Spike. That's when I went out to write on the wall again. But the whole time I was out there I kept thinking that we had kept the truth about Spike away from Buffy because we wanted her to 'be happy', but the only way she could have been happy was with Spike, and we took that away from her, the chance to be happy. I was standing out there thinking about that and I started to cry and couldn't write anymore." Willow wiped at the tears running from her eyes. Looking over at Dawn she asked in a voice that carried the pain she was feeling, "Is that what I was suppose to learn Dawnie? That we really were wrong in what we did? That we really did hurt Buffy and that she'll never forgive us?" Willow bowed her head and buried her face in her hands as she started to cry harder.

Dawn had been affected by Willows emotional speech, but kept her own emotions under control. Dawn had something important to say to Willow and she didn't want her own emotions to get in the way. Pulling herself together and clearing her throat, Dawn started talking to Willow with a firm and steady voice. "Willow, I don't know if Buffy is ever going to forgive you or not. But I do know this much. Buffy won't even think about forgiving you until she knows in her heart that you truly understand how badly you hurt her. What you did was wrong. But you didn't just hurt Buffy, you betrayed her trust in you. Buffy loved you Willow and you broke her heart. Maybe, when Buffy knows you understand that, maybe when her heart heals, maybe then she'll forgive you."

Dawns words did little to sooth Willows pain as she sat there crying. But the truth of what Dawn had said to her registered loud and clear. Willow had to understand and except fully that what she and the others did to Buffy was a betrayal of her trust in them. That maybe, someday, Buffy might forgive Willow for what she had done, but not without a cost. To gain Buffys forgiveness Willow would first have to earn it by proving that she could be trusted with Buffys friendship, and love, again.

(09/05)

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	13. It Hurts 13

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It Hurts (So Bad) - 13

Willow sat for several minutes crying softly to herself. When the tears stopped she sat up and wiped them from her face with her hands. Digging into the pocket of her nightgown she fished out a tissue and blew her nose, then stuffed it back into her pocket. Reaching over to the end table next to the couch, she picked up a pencil. Looking down at Dawn, who was still sitting on the floor in front of the computer, Willow said, her voice still raspy with emotion. "I'm going to try to do this the right way this time, Dawnie. I'm going to think about what I'm writing and saying this time. I'm going to think about what it really means to Buffy, and to me too."

Saying this, Willow got up from the couch, walked over to the door, opened it and went out into the hallway, to start writing on the wall again. This time Willow knew what the 'Buffy loves Spike!' message was really all about. It wasn't just about Buffy loving Spike or that she would always love him. It wasn't just about feeling guilty because she'd hidden the knowledge of Spike's return from Buffy. This time it was about 'accepting' that what she had done was 'truly wrong'. That there were no reasons, justifications, or circumstances for her to hide behind any longer. This time Willow expected, even wanted, to pay the full emotional price for her actions. Because more than anything she wanted to learn from this, to grow within her mind, her heart, her soul, so that she could find a way back into Buffy's heart, friendship and trust.

Dawn watched Willow go out the door feeling a bit of sympathy for her, but at the same time a stronger sense of hope. At this time 'hope' was all that Dawn would let herself feel. Hope for Willow, for Giles, maybe even Andrew. Thoughts of Xander passed through her mind. Was there any hope for Xander? Dawn pushed that thought away for now, she'd think about that problem later.

Dawn got up from the floor and walked over to Buffys bed to check on her. Seeing that she was still sleeping soundly, Dawn smiled. Buffy sleeping soundly was so much better than having her wake up screaming and crying. Dawn even noticed that the bottle of whiskey that Buffy had been drinking from the previous afternoon was still half full. Buffy hadn't touched it since she set it down to try to comfort Willow, and then Spike came back. No drinking, no nightmares, no crying, things were definitely getting better.

Going back to get her coffee mug, Dawn went into the kitchen and made herself a fresh cup. She then decided to make a fresh pot of coffee. Buffy would want some when she woke up and Willow might want some more when she got back from the hallway. With a fresh pot of coffee brewing and a full mug in her hand, Dawn went back and sat down on the floor in front of the computer. Thinking about her talk with Willow, Dawn reopened the document she'd been working on and reading through it made a few changes. She then started typing again, her thoughts clear and flowing.

Dawn had just started the seventh page of typing when the e-mail program made a 'ping' to signal a new e-mail had arrived. Quickly she opened the e-mail program and saw that it was from Giles. Opening it she saw that it contained the fifty lines of the 'Buffy loves Spike!' message and noted the time, 7:11PM, London time. Checking her own watch she realized it was after 11AM, her time. Eight hundred down and two hundred to go, Dawn smiled. Going back to her document she started typing again, fresh thoughts coming to mind. Dawn was so involved in what she was doing she lost all track of time. She was in the middle of her twelfth page when the e-mail program made it's 'ping' sound again. Looking at her watch she noted that it was just past 12:30PM. Not wanting to interrupt her train of thought, Dawn didn't bother to check the e-mail from Giles, she continued with what she was writing.

Dawn had just finished typing fifteen pages and had said all that she could think of to say. She knew that she would go over it again, maybe make some changes, add a new thought. But for now she felt she was finished. She saved the document, then sat back to relax and let the tension leave her body. Checking her watch she realized that it was a few minutes past 1:00PM. Buffy was still sleeping and Willow was still out in the hallway. Dawn sat for a few minutes wondering what she should do next. It was the rumbling of her own stomach that made the decision for her, it was close to nineteen hours since her last meal and she was hungry. Three mugs of coffee full of sugar and creamer might wake you up and give you short term energy, but real food is what she needed now.

Going into the kitchen Dawn looked in the refrigerator and then the cabinets for something to eat. She spotted a can of Spaghetti-O's, but realized that she could eat the whole can herself, and needed to think about enough food for all of them. She then spotted a jar of spaghetti sauce and a box of spaghetti. Smiling to herself she pulled them out of the cabinet. Taking a large pot out of a cabinet she half filled it with water and putting it on the stove she turned the heat to high to bring the water to a boil. Using a smaller pot she emptied the sauce into it and set the heat to low. Wishing she had Italian bread, but making do with what she had, she started toasting bread two slices at a time in the toaster. When the toast finished she spread them with butter while they were still hot and sprinkled a small amount of garlic powder and some parmesan cheese on each piece and finished by cutting the toast in half, corner to corner. When the water started to boil she added a full box of spaghetti to the water. She also made sure to stir the sauce so that she didn't let it burn. When the spaghetti was done she drained off the water then added a quarter cup of olive oil. Dawn remembered that was what her Mom always did, to prevent the spaghetti from sticking together. She also remembered that Buffy use to complain about the extra calories the olive oil added, but it never stopped her from eating their Mom's spaghetti. She then poured the hot sauce over the spaghetti and stirred it in slowly so that she didn't break the spaghetti up in the pot. She then turned the heat to warm to let the sauce cook into the spaghetti for a few minutes. Looking at the meal she had just prepared, Dawn had to smile. Each step of the way she had tried to do it just like she remembered her Mom doing it, and unless she did something wrong at the last moment, everything seemed perfect. Looking at her watch she realized that it had only taken her about twenty minutes to make the whole meal. Maybe cooking wasn't that hard after all.

Getting a large ice tea pitcher out of the cabinet she poured a cup of sugar and two cups of milk into it and mixed them together until the sugar was dissolved. She then poured the full pot of coffee into the pitcher. Tasting the mix she decided it needed more sugar and added another half cup. Next she added two table spoons of vanilla extract and mixed it in with the rest. The milk and sugar had cooled the coffee down, but not enough. Getting some ice cubes from the freezer she added them to the pitcher, mixed everything up, and put the pitcher into the refrigerator to chill.

Dawn had just put the iced coffee into the refrigerator when Willow came back into the apartment. Immediately Willow started sniffing the air and headed for the kitchen. Dawn headed her off and told her to wash up and get dressed. Going over to Buffys bed Dawn watched her for a few moments. Buffy was still sleeping, but was moving around in her sleep, which usually indicated that she would be waking up soon. Seeing as it was now 1:30PM, and not wanting Buffy to sleep the whole day away, Dawn gave her a little shake. It only took the one shake for Buffy to wake up, and when she did, she woke with a smile on her face. Seeing Dawn made Buffy happy. Feeling rested and relaxed made her happy too.

As she lay there blinking her eyes as she came to full awareness, Buffys nose started to twitch. The smell of spaghetti, garlic bread and parmesan cheese filled the air. Buffys first thought was about how good it smelled, enough to make her mouth water. Her second thought was about how many calories there was in spaghetti, and even more in garlic bread. Laying there Buffy found herself with mixed thoughts and feelings. The spaghetti smelled wonderful and Buffy was really hungry, but spaghetti for breakfast just didn't seem right, plus all those calories. But then she remembered that Spike said she needed to eat more, to gain some weight because she was to skinny. Thinking about Spike wanting her to eat more and gain weight was all that it really took to convince Buffy that eating spaghetti for breakfast, even if it really was well past lunch time, would be just fine.

But of course Buffy couldn't just admit that she was hungry and that she was perfectly willing to eat a big plate of spaghetti. So instead she asked Dawn, "What's for breakfast?"

But Dawn had seen Buffys nose twitch and had seen her lick her lips, she knew what game Buffy was playing. So she answered, "Sorry Buffy, breakfast was a long time ago. But if you want breakfast, I'll get you a bowl of cereal with skim milk. Willow and I got hungry so were going to have a big lunch. But if you want breakfast, that's okay. That just means more for the two of us."

Buffy was almost stunned by the idea that she wasn't going to get any of the spaghetti. She started to protest that she didn't want to be any extra trouble, that she'd eat what Dawn and Willow were eating. But then she noticed the big smile on Dawns face and knew she'd been caught out. When Dawn started laughing at her, she mumbled under her breath "Brat!" and stuck her bottom lip out in a big pout. Dawn heard what Buffy said, but didn't take offence, she just laughed harder. When Willow came out of the bathroom she could see the pout on Buffys face and heard Dawns laughter. She didn't know what was going on, but felt sure it wasn't a problem, she knew it was a sister thing and that everything was alright.

Leaving Buffy to pout, knowing that she wasn't really upset, just pretending to be, Dawn left her side and went back to the kitchen. Dawn had toasted eight pieces of bread and cut each piece in half, cross corner. She got three plates out and arranged four pieces of toast on each plate around the edges, then filled the center of the plates with spaghetti, letting it partially cover the toast. She then sprinkled a generous amount of parmesan cheese on top of the spaghetti. There were four half pieces of toast left, she put two of them on the plate she intended for Buffy and one on each of the plates for her and Willow.

Willow had followed Dawn to the kitchen and watched her zipping about, seeming to be doing three things at once. For a girl who was always insisting that she didn't know how to cook, Dawn was doing one heck of a job of it. The last thing Dawn did, after the plates were ready, was to open the freezer and take three frosty tall tea glasses out. She then took a pitcher of what looked like chilled Cappuccino mix out of the refrigerator and filled the glasses three fourths full, then as a last step got a can of whipped cream out of the refrigerator, shook it for a few seconds and topped off each glass, then sprinkled a little cinnamon on top of the whipped cream. Looking everything over to be sure it was right, as a last thought Dawn opened a drawer and pulled out some straws, putting one into each drink.

Dawn put the fullest plate and one of the Cappuccinos on a tray, along with a fork and napkin, and carried it over to Buffy and set it in her lap. She then hurried back to the kitchen and prepared two more trays, one for her and one for Willow. They both carried their own trays over to Buffys bed and they each sat down on the bed wedging themselves up tight against Buffy. One of the reasons for doing this was that they all wanted to eat together. But the other reason was that by sitting this way they helped to keep the tray in Buffys lap from slipping off her lap while she ate. Even though Dawn had hurried as quickly as she could to prepare the trays for Willow and herself, by the time they got back to the bed, Buffy had already eaten the two pieces of toast that were on top of her spaghetti and was digging into the spaghetti with her fork. It didn't take long for both Willow and Dawn to join her in the feast and all of them were eating like they hadn't eaten in days.

They were all half way through their meal when Dawn noticed that Buffy was getting frustrated. With her one arm still strapped against her chest to keep her from moving the arm and shoulder, Buffy was having more difficulty than usual with her eating. The main problem seemed to be that she could only do one thing at a time, hold a piece of toast and eat it, hold her fork and eat spaghetti or hold her glass and drink her iced Cappuccino. Buffy wanted to do all three at once and didn't have enough hands free to do even two of them at once. Feeling really put upon by the whole situation she started to pout again, but realized that she couldn't pout and eat at the same time, and gave up on the pouting.

When they all finished eating, Dawn and Willow gathered up the trays and dishes and carried them to the kitchen. While Willow rinsed off the plates, Dawn refilled the glasses with the last of the Cappuccino and topped them with whipped cream and cinnamon. They carried the drinks back to Buffy and settled themselves on the bed with her again. With her glass in her hand, Buffy laid back against her pillows with a smile on her face, feeling full and happy.

Looking at her sister and Willow, Buffy made the decision to go ahead and do what she had discussed with Spike the night before. Giving both a smile, she said "I guess you both know that I was up all night talking to Spike. We had a lot to say to each other, about how we feel, that we really do love each other. Spike believes me now, he told me he did. He told me that the reason I can see and hear him is because I love him." Buffy looked at both Dawn and Willow carefully, looking for some indication of denial or disbelief on their faces. But all she could see was acceptance. Maybe not acceptance that Spike was real, but definite acceptance of her feelings for him and that she believed what she was saying.

When Buffy continued to speak her voice was a little more serious in tone. "But, that wasn't all Spike told me. He told me it wasn't just because I loved him that made it possible to see and hear him, it was also because I wanted and needed him, that I believed in him." Taking a sip of her drink, Buffy paused for a few moments, then said quickly in a sudden push. "Spike thinks it's important that the two of you believe in him too, and, he told me how to prove he's real." Watching the both of them Buffy could see the shadow of doubt on Willows face, that she tried to hide. Dawns face was more open, more a look of curiosity. With conviction in her voice, she said "Spike can talk to other people, people in heaven, if they want to talk to him." Looking at Dawn, and speaking quietly with love in her voice, "He talked to Mom last night, Dawnie, she's been watching over us."

If Buffy was expecting words or looks of denial from Dawn, she didn't get them. Instead, there was a look of surprised hope. When a single tear ran down Dawns face, it wasn't a tear of sadness, but from happiness. Knowing Mom was in heaven, even though Dawn loved and missed her dearly, made her swell with joy. Not able to speak at the moment, Dawn smiled at Buffy and nodded her head in acceptance of what she'd said.

Looking over at Willow, she said "He talked to Tara again last night too." The pain that came to Willows eyes was the same as the day before, but this time she didn't break down and cry. "Tara watches over you too, Wil, all the time." Seeing the effect of her words on Willow, Buffy hurried on to explain. "Tara told him why she doesn't talk to you. She can't, it's against the rules!" Seeing confusion on both Willow and Dawns faces, Buffy continued. "It seems that even heaven has rules, and the first one, the big one, is that souls in heaven can't communicate directly with the living."

Dawn was a bit confused, but ever curious. "What about that John Edwards guy, and those other psychics? Their always claiming that they talk to people in heaven, don't they?"

"Actually they don't" Buffy explained. "What they do is sort of pick up on emotions and feelings. Sort of like what Willow said she could feel when she used that trancy spell thing to find Tara in heaven. If their good at it, and maybe after a lot of practice, they can also pick up mental pictures of things. I don't really know for sure, and we didn't spend much time talking about that part of things anyway. What's important is that when they make contact with a soul in heaven, they don't really talk to it directly."

Buffy stopped, waiting for a reaction. Willow was the first to speak, "Then Tara isn't mad at me Buffy? That isn't why she wouldn't talk to me?" Willow asked, her voice filled with both pain and hope at the same time.

"Oh, no Wil, Tara loves you. She still loves you and she always will" Buffy told Willow, with deep concern and sympathy in her voice. "That's why she felt so sad, when you found her in heaven. It was like you said. When you first found her she seemed happy, but after she knew you were there, it made her feel sad. She wanted to talk to you, Wil, but she couldn't, it's not allowed."

The tears that Willow had been holding back started to run from her eyes. But this time there wasn't the pain she had felt the day before, or for all these months since she first tried talking to Tara. This time the tears were more of happiness, from feeling whole inside, knowing that Tara still loved her. A smile spread across Willows face, even though she was crying, she was happy.

Giving Willow a minute to cry, and pull herself together, Buffy waited before speaking again. "Wil?" Buffy said gently, "Tara gave Spike a message for you. Tara wants you to know that she loves you, that she will always love you. But, she also wanted you to know that she's happy in heaven. She's with her mother, Wil, and she's happy. She also told Spike that she wants you to be happy too. She told him that she doesn't want you to stop loving her anymore, or to stop missing her, but she wants you to be happy with your life. She told him that it's time for you to let yourself move on with your life and let yourself be happy again. Tara told Spike that she thinks your ready to do that now."

Buffy paused again, to see how Willow would react to what she'd just said. But Willow just continued to smile and didn't say anything. "What I told you yesterday, what Tara said about Kennedy, that was true, Wil. Tara was glad that you broke up with her, but not because she was jealous or didn't want you to be happy. But, Tara knew that Kennedy didn't understand you, or about the magic, how important it is to you, that the magic is a part of who you are and what you'll always be. That's why Tara thinks the girl at school might be good for you, that she will understand you, once you tell her the truth about yourself."

Buffy waited again to see what Willows reaction would be, she had more to say, but didn't want to overwhelm Willow with everything at once. Willow had been sitting, holding the iced Cappuccino glass with both hands. With one hand she set it down on the night stand at the head of Buffys bed, and with both hands wiped the tears from her eyes. Looking up at Buffy, she gave her a sad/happy smile, and said "Thank you, Buffy. Thank you and Spike both." Willow stood up from the bed then, and digging into her pants pocket she pulled out a tissue and blew her nose. Placing the used tissue next to her glass, she sat back down, and said again "Thank you so much!"

Seeing that Willow had herself under control, and that she wasn't overwhelmed by what she'd already told her, Buffy started talking to her again. "That's not all of it Wil, there's more. See, it was Tara who thought up how to convince you and Dawn that Spike is real, to make you believe me that he's real. That girl at school, that you kind of like, but have been kind of afraid of talking to. The one you'd like to ask out for coffee or something, to get to know her better?" When Willow nodded her head to acknowledge what Buffy said, she continued. "I'm pretty sure you haven't mentioned her name to either Dawn or me, and I'm pretty positive you haven't described what she looks like, right?"

Willow looked at Buffy, then over at Dawn, before replying. "No, I haven't really said that much about her, to you or to Dawnie."

"Okay! Tara told Spike all about her and he told me." Buffys voice started to become a little excited. "Her name is Karin, (Ka-rin), and she's in two of your classes, so you see her almost everyday, when you go to your classes. Tara gave Spike a mental kind of picture of her, and Spike gave me her description." A slight blush came to Buffys face as she paused for a moment. "Wil, remember, this is Spikes description of her, okay?" Willow just nodded her head to Buffy, but didn't say anything. "Okay, Spike says that she's got short dark hair, she's a little taller than you and that she's thin, but not skinny. Spike called her 'willowy', says she looks like Audrey Hepburn, except … …" Buffys blush got even brighter as she tried to continue. "Okay, remember, Spikes the one who said this. Spike says 'she's got bloody big knockers for a girl her size'."

The blush that came to Willows face confirmed Spikes description of the girl. That and the fact that Willows mouth had dropped open as Buffy described Karin. Dawn had been listening to everything Buffy was saying, and seeing the blush on Willows face, a wicked grin spread over her face. Not able to hold it back, Dawn said with a definite smirk in her voice, "Bloody big knockers, that's good, right Wil?" The fact that Willow almost turned purple with embarrassment and had to hide her face in her hands just confirmed that the description was right on, and that Willow thought that 'bloody big knockers' were more than just 'good'.

As soon as Willows blush started to fade, and before Dawn could say something to make her blush again, Buffy spoke up. "Wil, there's one more thing I need to tell you." When Willow looked up at her and Buffy knew she had her attention, she told her. "Again, Tara told Spike and he told me. But, Tara wanted us, me, to tell you that she has been sort of watching over Karin for the past month or so. Not that she's spying on her or anything. It's just that Tara sort of felt that you might be interested in Karin, and has been looking in on her to see if maybe she might have any kind of feelings for you too. Anyway, what Tara wanted you to know is that Karin has been kind of worried about you. Okay, maybe not worried, but concerned about you not being at school for the past week. She checked, so she knows you've been e-mailing your class assignments into the professors, so she knows your okay. She was going to e-mail you, but you never gave her your e-mail address, so even though she knew it, she didn't use it. But, she looked up your phone number in the student directory, because it's public, and she's called you three times and left messages on your voice mail. Tara thinks that maybe you should turn your phone back on, and maybe give Karin a call. You know, to thank her for her concern, and maybe to talk to her about classes and stuff. Maybe arrange to go meet her for coffee, or something."

The look of puzzlement, and then dismay, that crossed Willows face was easy to read. Willow had never been able to hide her emotions from showing on her face, unless she deliberately concentrated on it. When she left herself open, like she was right now, her face was like a book to someone who knew her as well as Buffy knew her. In a voice that was barely above a whisper, but filled with confusion and doubt, Willow asked "Does Tara really want me to move on, Buffy? To forget about her?"

"No, Wil, that's not what Tara meant" Buffy assured her, her voice soft and soothing. "What Tara wants, I think, is for you to understand that she is gone, to heaven, and that she is happy. I think she just wants you to give yourself the chance to meet someone new, and to be happy in this world. Tara loves you Wil, she always will love you. But she's not part of this world anymore, and she never will be again. She doesn't want you to forget her, but that doesn't mean she doesn't want you to find someone else you could love. I'm not saying that Tara thinks that Karin is the one you should move on with, or love. But I do think she wants you to give yourself the chance to find out if Karin is the one you could move on with, and love. And if it isn't Karin, maybe it will be someone else, but you have to let yourself be open to it before it can happen."

Willow sat there looking down at her hands for several minutes. Buffy didn't say anything to disturb her thinking and neither did Dawn. When she finally did look up at Buffy, she had a kind of sad, almost wispy, smile on her face. When she spoke her voice was low, almost a whisper, but calm and serene. "I think I'm going to take a walk." Getting up Willow walked over and picked up her oversized coat and put it on. She hesitated for a few moments, then picked up her cell phone and slipped it into her coat pocket. As she opened the door to leave, she told both Dawn and Buffy, "I'll be back in an hour or two, I just need to clear my head, do some thinking." She then walked out the door and closed it behind her.

(10/05)

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	14. It Hurts 14

It Hurts (So Bad)

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It Hurts (So Bad) - 14

When Willow closed the door, Dawn let out a sigh of breath. Looking up, she said "God, Buffy, I don't know if I should feel happy or sad. I mean, in a way I'm happy that Tara is in heaven, but at the same time I'm sad that Willow can't talk to her there. I'm glad that Tara is happy in heaven and that she still loves Willow, but at the same time it's kind of sad that she's telling Willow that she needs to learn to be happy in this world, without her. It's all kind of confusing and I don't know what to feel."

"I know, Dawnie, it is confusing" Buffy replied. "But this is something that Wil's going to have to work out for herself. We can be there for her. We can be supportive of whatever she decides to do. But we can't make her decisions for her. Wil's going to have to find her own way to deal with the future. But, I think Tara is right, she's been gone almost three years now, it's time for Wil to move on with her life." Saying these words, the irony of them suddenly struck Buffy hard and a frown spread over her face.

Dawn, seeing the frown, and guessing what it was about, reached out and took hold of Buffys hand, giving it a squeeze. "Please don't Buffy. Don't think about that. It's not the same thing as you and Spike. No one ever told Willow that she shouldn't love Tara. No one ever told her any lies about Tara, or hid any information about Tara from her. No one ever tried to control or manipulate Willows life for her. It's not even close to being the same thing."

Buffy sighed, then looking at Dawn, gave her a small smile. "I know, Dawnie. It's not the same and never will be, because no one's ever tried to make Willows decisions for her. Even if someone thought she was making a bad decision, it was always hers to make. No one tried to interfere with her life. It's just the irony of the situation that gets to me. You know, people wanting other people to 'move on' with their lives, wanting them to 'be happy'. How can someone know when it's time for someone else to move on with their life. How do they know what will make someone else happy. Like you said, it's hard to know what to think, it's confusing."

Seeing the sadness in Buffys eyes, Dawn asked quietly with a slight quiver in her voice, "Do you think you'll ever forgive them Buffy?"

Buffy drew in a breath and let it out in a sigh. Thinking about Willow, Xander and Giles and what they did was always painful. Half of the pain was due to the anger and sense of betrayal she couldn't help feeling. The rest was due to feelings of an emptiness inside of her that might never be filled again. The loss of her friends, the trust she had always had in them, was like an open wound in her heart. Her voice almost a whisper, Buffy replied, "I don't know, Dawnie. Forgive, maybe, someday? But trust, I don't know?"

They both sat quietly for a minute or so, holding each others hand, neither one wanting to continue the conversation. When a sudden thought came to Dawns mind, she gave Buffys hand a shake to draw her attention and when Buffy looked at her Dawn had a big smile on her face. "You said that Spike talked to Mom last night, in heaven" Dawn gushed out. "Tell me about it!"

The look that came to Buffys face was both sad and happy. There was a smile on her face that reflected both feelings of love and happiness. But at the same time there was a look in her eyes that seemed to reflect longing and loss. The combination seemed to speak to Dawn in a way that she fully understood. Dawn missed her Mom at times so much that it seemed there was an empty place inside her that could never be filled. But knowing her Mom was in heaven made her happy in a way that seemed to fill her up. It was such a mixed up jumble of feelings, love and longing, happiness and loss, but Dawn could see that Buffy felt the same way and was just as confused by her feelings as Dawn.

"Yeah, Dawnie, Spike talked to Mom last night." Buffy told Dawn, her voice soft and full of love. "She wants you to know that she misses you and that she loves you. Mom's been watching over you since she …" Buffys voice broke for a moment, then she continued "… since she's been gone. She asked Spike to tell you, that she knows you've made some mistakes, but it's okay, she knows you were doing the best you could. She's proud of you Dawnie, really proud."

Buffy continued to tell Dawn the things that Spike had told her about their mother. They both ended up confessing to each other how much they still missed their mother and how at times it hurt to much to even think about it. They both admitted that the pain of their mutual loss was great, but at the same time having confirmation that their mother was in heaven, and watching over them, still loving them, gave them both a sense happiness. They ended up in each others arms crying, partly due to their shared grief, but also due to a sense of long needed healing that they were sharing with each other.

When the tears had dried and both were under control of their emotions again, Dawn was the first to speak. "Buffy, I believe you when you say that Spike is really here, that he's not an hallucination. But I still don't understand why he wants me to believe he's real. I mean, I can't see him or hear him, so why is it important?"

Buffy looked at Dawn for long moments before she spoke. The emotions that seemed to pass across her face were a combination of hesitation and hope, mixed with fear and anxiety. "I don't have all the details, Dawnie, and I don't think Spike does either. But, ….. Tara told Spike ….. that … that there might be a way ….. for him …. to come back to me."

Dawns mouth had dropped open after hearing Buffys words. Shock was the dominant reaction, followed by confusion, followed by hope, then fear. Not fear for herself, or even for Spike, but fear for Buffy. A cascade of thoughts and memories flashed through Dawns mind. Memories of how Buffy was brought back to life, dark black magic that ripped her out of heaven. Memories of how changed Buffy had seemed to be after her return, and all the pain she had suffered as she tried to find her way to some level of acceptance of her loss of heaven. Thoughts of the abusive and twisted relationship that developed between Buffy and Spike, and how it had ended, in a bathroom. Fear filled Dawns mind as she imagined the effect it would have on Buffy if Spike came back and didn't love her anymore, or even worse, their relationship became dark and twisted like before.

"Bu… Buffy, is that a go… good thing? Br… bringing Spike back? Wi.. with the magic … and stuff? Wo… would he be …. li… like you were?" Dawn stammered out, her voice barely above a whisper.

Buffy was shocked, and hurt, by Dawns words. Until she realized that she was seeing anxiety and fear written across Dawns face, and understood what she 'hadn't' said. A tear broke loose and ran down the side of Buffys face. Her breath seemed to catch in her throat as she attempted to speak. "It … it won't be like with me, Dawnie. We wouldn't be ripping him out of heaven, and there wouldn't be any dark magic… and Spike wants to come back … to me, … and to you too. He loves us both, Dawnie, and he wants to be with us again."

Dawn hesitated for a few moments as she tried to sort out her thoughts. "But, … you said Spike talked to Tara, and Mom, and their both in heaven. How can he talk to them if he isn't in heaven too?"

"Spike said that he doesn't really know where he is, but it's a good place. He said that when he first got there he was all messed up, emotionally, and that it took him a long time to sort himself out" Buffy explained calmly. "He told me that there isn't anyone else where he's at, but he doesn't feel lonely because he can talk to people in heaven, if they want to talk to him." A tear started running down Buffys cheek, but the look on her face was one of happiness. "He said that the first person he talked to was someone … that he'd killed … and she'd forgiven him. He was crying when he told me about it, Dawnie. He didn't understand how she could ever forgive him, he thought her death was his greatest sin. But she did, she forgave him and told him that she loved him."

Dawn felt stunned by what Buffy had just told her and when she spoke her voice was hushed, almost a whisper. "Do you know who it was Buffy? Did he tell you?"

Buffy looked as if she were going to cry, but she smiled at Dawn as she replied. "He told me Dawnie. It was his mother." Seeing the shocked look on Dawns face Buffy hurried to continue. "She was dieing Dawnie. It was right after Spike was turned, but he still loved her so much, he thought he was saving her. After he turned her he realized that his mother was gone, that he'd killed her, and that it was only the demon that was left, so he killed the demon. But for over a hundred and twenty years he's lived with the guilt of what he'd done. When his mother forgave him, he said it felt as if there was a wound in his heart that had finally healed."

For a minute Dawn sat there thinking about what Buffy had just told her and her first reaction was to feel horror at the knowledge that Spike had killed his own mother. But then it hit her, she had loved her own mother so much that she had tried to raise her from the grave after she had died. It was only at the last moment that she realized that it wasn't her mother that she had raised and broke the spell. With an insight beyond her years, Dawn understood why Spike had done what he had done. She also understood why his mother had forgiven him. With tears leaking from her own eyes, Dawn reached over and grasped Buffys hand and smiled at her. Together they shared a minute of understanding.

Clearing her throat and breaking eye contact for a few moments, Dawn changed the topic back to her original question. "So, no dark magic and no super depressed Spike when he comes back, but what does that have to do with Willow and me believing in him?"

Giving her head a little shake to clear her mind and focus her thoughts, Buffy looked at Dawn, a pensive frown marring her brow. "You know I don't really understand the whole magic whosits or howsits, right?" Buffy asked. When Dawn nodded her head in agreement, Buffy continued. "Tara told Spike that there might be a way …. for him to come back to us. But … it's sort of dependent on people wanting him back, believing in him."

Seeing Dawns eyes grow wide in excitement, Buffy continued before Dawn could say anything. "Tara told Spike that it can only work because he really wants to come back. More than anything else Dawnie, more than heaven, Spike wants to come back to me, to us. But he can't do it on his own, or with just me wanting him back, cause if we could do it alone he'd already be back. Tara said that it's going to take more than just us to bring him back. Spike doesn't know how many we will need though. It might be just a few or a bunch, and there's the problem, because besides you and me he doesn't know of anyone else that would want him back, and neither do I." As she finished speaking, tears broke free and started running down Buffys face.

Dawn sat for several moments, feeling just as sad as Buffy, until a thought entered her mind. "What about Willow and Giles? Could they help?" Dawn asked uncertainty in her voice.

Buffy looked up at Dawn, her own doubts showing in her eyes. "I don't know Dawn. Tara told Spike that he would need a witch or a sorcerer at least as powerful as Willow to do the spell. That's why I wanted to prove to Wil that Spike is real, not just an hallucination like she's been thinking. But I don't know if she would help even if she believed he's real. It's not like she'd really want to help him. And Giles, yeah, lot of luck trying to get him to want Spike back." The anger that Buffy couldn't help feeling showed in her voice.

"Buffy, I think that maybe your wrong. About both Willow and Giles." Dawn said with a note of excitement coming into her voice. "Come on, get out of bed" Dawn said as she got off the bed and started pulling back the sheet that covered Buffy to the waist. "I need to show you something that might change your mind."

Buffy swung her legs to the side and Dawn reached out to steady her as she slipped out of bed. She didn't know what Dawn wanted to show her and when Dawn led her to the apartment door a frowning look of doubt slipped into place. But Dawn didn't give her a chance to balk and urged her out the doorway. At first Buffy couldn't figure out why Dawn had dragged her out into the hallway in her underwear and a shirt, until Dawn walked her over to the wall and she noticed there was writing, lots of writing. Line after line, column after column, all of them saying the same thing.

Buffy loves Spike! Buffy will always love Spike! Buffy will love Spike until the end of the world!

Reading these words brought tears to Buffys eyes. Turning her head she could see that the columns stretched down the hallway. Looking at Dawn, not understanding, she asked "Who … who did this?"

Dawn let a big grin spread over her lips, then said "Willow!"

Seeing the puzzled look on Buffys face Dawn knew there would be questions, but before Buffy could say anything, Dawn said "Come on, I need to show you something else."

Taking Buffys hand she led her back into the apartment and walked her over to the couch and had her sit down. Kneeling down on the floor in front of the computer Dawn opened her email program and opened the first of the responses that Giles had sent to her. Making sure that Buffy leaned forward so she could see what was written in the emails she started paging through them one after another. When she got to the last one she stopped, making sure that the email header was showing so that Buffy could see that the emails were from Giles. Dawn looked at Buffy expectantly, and waited.

"I … I don't understand Dawn. What's does all this mean?" Buffy said, the look of complete puzzlement on her face easily readable.

Dawn moved up from where she was kneeling and sat next to Buffy. Reaching out she took Buffys hand in both of hers and gave it a squeeze. Looking at Buffy she gave her a smile, and then started talking. "Look, I need to tell you some things and I need you to listen to me without getting all mad and not listening anymore, okay? What I need to tell you is important, and it might help Spike. So will you listen?"

Dawn waited for a moment, until Buffy nodded her head, then after taking a deep breath she started talking. "Last week when you got hurt and called me, I rousted Willow out of bed to come with me. I could have come alone but I didn't know how badly you were hurt so I made her come too. After we got here and got you into bed I sent Wil out to get you more booze to drink, because I knew that you would want more and if we didn't have any to give to you you'd probably try to get up to get some yourself. While she was gone I found something, the picture she gave you at Christmas, and it really made me mad." Dawn could see that Buffy was clenching her jaws at the reminder and hurried on. "After she got back she said something and it made me even madder. So I dragged her out into the hallway and jumped all over her ass. Sometimes Wil is the smartest person I know, but sometimes, about certain things she's dumber than a brick. I was really doing a rant on her and it was taking everything I had to keep control of myself, but then she said something really really stupid and I went ballistic on her and I nearly punched her lights out."

Seeing Buffys eyes widen in surprise, Dawn gave her a crooked grin, then continued. "I didn't, but it was close. Instead I went into super bitch mode and ripped into her about all the things she'd done to Tara. The lies, the manipulations, taking her memories and her free will away from her. I told her that every time she did that to Tara she'd been raping her, and that she'd raped all the rest of us when she took our memories away from us too. By the time I was done with her she was a big puddle on the floor. But even as mad as I still was, I knew that Wil didn't understand what she'd done to you. She didn't understand that you loved Spike. She didn't understand that you loved Spike as much as she had loved Tara."

Buffy had started crying at the mention of the things Willow had done to Tara and the rest of them. The tears came even harder at the mention of Spike. Dawn gave Buffys hand another squeeze, but continued on with her story. "So Wil's crying, I'm mad that she doesn't understand, and then an idea popped into my head. I got her up off the floor and handed her a pencil and told her she had to do her homework. I told her what to write and that she had to do it a thousand times, or I would never let her see you or talk to you again."

"Okay, so that first night she did what I said and she finally seemed to understand how much Spike meant to you and how much you loved him. At least she said she did and acted like she did. Over the past week she's been going out at times and writing on the wall on her own. It wasn't until this morning that I figured out, after I started Giles doing the same thing, that she still didn't get it, not completely. So we talked it out and I really think she does get it now Buffy. I really think that she understands about you and Spike, and I think that maybe Giles is getting it too, even if he doesn't know it yet."

Buffy was looking down at Dawns hands clasping her hand, but she had been listening to every word that Dawn had been saying to her. When Dawn stopped speaking for a few moments, she started shaking her head from side to side. Looking up at Dawn with tears in her eyes again, she said "I don't understand Dawnie. I told them that I'd loved Spike. I told them that I missed him, that it hurt so bad when I told him I loved him and he didn't believe me. They saw me mourn him for months, they saw me cry for him. How could they not understand how I feel about him? How could they hide it from me that he was back? How does writing on a wall or sending emails to you suddenly make them understand?"

Dawn took in a deep breath and let it out slowly before speaking. "It all has to do with subliminal messages and how they work on a persons mind." Dawn could see immediately that she had lost Buffy. "That's not really that important, just believe me, it's a psychology thing, and it works on the unconscious part of a persons mind. They don't even know that it's happening."

Dawn paused for several moments rethinking what she wanted to say. "Buffy, believe me when I tell you that I do understand how much you love Spike. I even understood how much you still loved him when we thought he was dead. But the rest of them, they never did. Believe me when I tell you that I understand how much they hurt you, how betrayed you felt when they kept it from you that he'd come back. It was stupid, it was wrong, it was narrow minded and cruel. They completely ignored everything you said about how you felt. But it wasn't evil, not on purpose."

"Look, I know you haven't talked to Giles since it happened, or to Xander since you broke his jaw. Willow, I've kept her on a short chain and warned her not to say anything to you about it. Except for that stupid stunt with the picture, she's done pretty much what I've asked. Andrew is still in Rome as far as I know, so you haven't had to deal with him. Angel, I've no idea where he's at now. But believe it or not, cause it really is true, none of them ever meant to hurt you, not even Angel. They just didn't understand."

Buffy started shaking her head again in the negative, so Dawn hurried on. "Buffy, I know that's not a good excuse. Actually it's a piss poor excuse, because if any of them had listened to you instead of living in Egypt they would have understood. But think about it this way for a minute. Giles has had twenty-five or thirty years of training and indoctrination that has taught him that vampires are soulless monsters that cannot love."

"The only vampire he ever trusted had a soul and then lost it and killed the woman he loved. Spike didn't have a soul and as far as Giles was concerned the only thing that prevented Spike from killing all of us was him having a chip in his head. Now two years ago, because of The First, Giles lost almost everyone he'd ever called a friend and I think maybe some family too. He brings a few surviving Potentials to you for protection with the hope that somehow you can defeat whatever it is that is killing everyone he knows. When he gets to Sunnydale the first things he learns is that your facing The First Evil and that The First has been using Spike to kill people and turn them. The fact that Spike has both a soul and a chip, but they didn't stop him from killing only confirms for Giles that Spike cannot be trusted."

Seeing that Buffy was getting upset and agitated Dawn cut herself off for a few seconds and regrouped. "Okay, let's skip over the details and get to the end. Spike went down into the Hellmouth wearing the amulet Angel gives you and died saving the world. Giles still didn't feel that he had any reason to trust Spike, but since he gave his life to save the world, Giles stopped beating a dead horse. The fact that after Spikes death you proclaim your love for him, where up to a few weeks before his death you were still denying any strong feelings for him, Giles attributes your feelings to survivors guilt."

"The next that Giles hears of Spike is from Andrew, that he is in L.A. and working with Angel, who just happens to have taken over as the CEO of the L.A. office of Wolfram & Hart, a law firm notorious for being aligned with the darkest of evil. Instead of coming to the conclusion that if Spike is working with Angel then maybe Angel has not turned evil, he instead assumes that if Spike is working with Angel then he must also be evil. Gathering your friends around, a decision is made to hide the knowledge of Spikes return from both you and me. You because they do not know how you will react, me because they know that I would have told you Spike was back. Andrew is threatened with expulsion from the Council if he tells you and is sent to Rome to keep an eye on you and report back to Giles."

"The rest of it's easy to understand. Willow hadn't trusted Spike since he chained you up and first told you that he loved you. After your death the friction became worse because Spike was always making comments about Willows use of magic, reminding her that there are always consequences. He also criticized her for her inability or refusal to change the programming in the BuffyBot and make it stop making moon eyes at him. Willow claimed that she had tried, but the programming was to deep and she would have destroyed the BuffyBot if she made anymore changes. The situation didn't get any better between them after Willow brought you back from heaven. Whether or not Xander ever told her why Spike left Sunnydale, after she came back from England, I don't know. But even if he didn't, Willow was afraid of Spike, maybe because Giles was afraid of him."

"Xander is the easiest to understand, he hated Spike. Which in a way is kind of strange because while you were dead they actually got along fairly well. They still called each other names, but it wasn't vicious. But after you came back Xanders hate seemed to double. I've never been sure if Xander hated Spike because he was a vampire or because he couldn't stand the thought of Spike loving you and maybe you loving Spike in return. Right there at the end, after Spike stopped Caleb from gouging out both of his eyes and killing him, Xander seemed to mellow out some. But apparently learning that Spike was back from the dead sent him right back into high hate mode."

"Andrew is the sad part of all this, because I know he hero worshiped Spike. But I think that he was so afraid that Giles would kick him out of the Council and he would have nothing and no where to go that he just caved. I mean he had promised Spike that he wouldn't tell you he was back, but he told Giles as soon as he got back to England, so he probably would have told you too if Giles hadn't threatened him."

"Angels a different story from all the rest. Spike and Angel have hated each other for forever. But they must have worked some of that out in the end, because they were working together. But if there is one thing certain, you can bet that Angel said and did everything possible to prevent Spike from letting you know he was back. Angel always thought he owned you, even if he didn't want you. There's no way he would have wanted to see you and Spike together."

By the time Dawn finished speaking Buffy was looking at her with her mouth open in awe. "Where in the world did you come up with all that?" Buffy asked bewilderedly.

Dawn gave Buffy a rueful half smile half smirk, then told her. "The Giles stuff I got mostly from Giles himself, when he was telling me all of his reasons and excuses and wanting me to convince you he was only doing what was best for you. I finally got sick of it and had my cell service block all overseas calls and stopped answering his email. Willow and Xander were easy to figure out, after the fact. Andrew sent me a letter, the same time he sent you one, telling me how he'd been involved and apologizing. The Angel part was easy too. I just let myself think like Angel, added two and two together and came up with nine, and knew that he was probably the main reason Spike didn't contact us."

Dawn had cast her eyes down at her hands as she was speaking, so when Buffy barked out a laugh, she raised her eyes to Buffys face and saw that she was looking off to one side a little. Dawn turned her head toward where Buffy was looking and saw nothing, then turned back to Buffy. "What?"

"Spikes back" Buffy said as she smiled, "he was listening to what you were saying and he say's that you've probably got most of it right. Except, he say's he was pretty messed up himself back then. First coming back as a ghost, then becoming solid for unknown reasons. Not knowing why he was back. Not knowing if anyone would care that he was back." Tears were running down Buffys face as she said this last part. Knowing that Spike hadn't believed her when she told him she loved him as he burned in the Hellmouth always brought a stab of pain to her heart. "But you believe me now, don't you, love?" When Buffy said this last part Dawn knew she wasn't talking to her.

Dawn let go of Buffys hand and turned herself on the couch so that she was looking in the same direction as Buffy. Sucking in some air, she blurted out "I believe in you, Spike! … I love you!" Tears came to Dawns eyes as she continued speaking. "I'm sorry I was mad at you. I'm sorry I didn't tell you that I wasn't mad anymore." Dawn was having trouble drawing breath in, her whole chest felt tight with emotion. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you that I still loved you …. be..before you died." Tears were flowing from her eyes so heavily she couldn't see anything but a haze in front of her. "I'm so..sorry you di..didn't think we would ca..care that you were back. I'm so..sorry!"

Buffy moved closer to Dawn and wrapped her one arm around her shoulders and pulled her in tight against herself. Dawn turned her head and cried into Buffys shoulder. "It's okay, Dawnie. Really, it's okay. Spike wasn't mad at you then and he isn't mad at you now. He just said to tell you that he loves you too, and that he always will." Buffy was sniffing and trying to hold back more of her own tears as she tried to calm and reassure Dawn. "You can't get any better than that Dawnie. When Spike loves you, it's forever."

(05/06)

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	15. It Hurts 15

It Hurts (So Bad)

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It Hurts (So Bad) -15

When Buffy told Dawn that Spike still loved her she started crying even harder, but now instead of tears of pain, they had turned to tears of joy. Lifting her head from Buffys shoulder Dawn glanced in the direction that Spike was suppose to be. Her eyes were still full of tears and it was like looking through a haze, but Dawn thought that she could see Spike, smiling at her. When she hurriedly wiped the tears away to see better, Spike was gone again. Letting out a sigh of frustration Dawn sat up straight and pulled back from Buffy a little. Searching around with her eyes she spotted the box of tissues that Willow had placed on the end table. Reaching around Buffy she snatched a couple from the box. Handing one of the tissues to Buffy, Dawn used the other one to blow her nose and then wipe the last of her tears from her eyes.

Looking up at Buffy she noticed that Buffy was holding the tissue in her hand, but hadn't used it yet. Buffy was sort of frowning at the tissue, but when she looked up at Dawn her frown turned into a grin. "You know this is stupid" Buffy exclaimed in a mildly frustrated voice, "but it's really hard to blow your nose with only one hand when you've always used two before."

Dawn let out a little laugh and grinned back at Buffy. "You know, I was going to do it later anyway, but maybe now would be a good time to unstrap your arm and see how your doing."

Buffy was more than willing to have herself unstrapped and have her freedom of movement back again. She hadn't really felt any pain in her collar bone or shoulder for a couple of days. Patiently she waited while Dawn unbuttoned her shirt and helped her take it off. Dawn then started unwrapping all the elastic bandages that she and Willow had used to bind Buffy up. When the last bandage was off, Dawn untied the sling that was still supporting her arm in place. Buffy stood up and slowly started to move her arm around a little at a time and to carefully move her shoulder around. There was only a little pain when she tried to raise her arm up over her head, but Dawn saw her wince and stopped her from moving around anymore. Reluctantly Buffy agreed to keep her arm in the sling for a couple more days, and Dawn almost as reluctantly agreed that she didn't need to bind Buffy up again.

It was also agreed that after a week Buffy needed to take a shower. Dawn insisted that she would come into the shower with Buffy and wash her hair and back so that she wouldn't have to over reach herself. For Buffy, with the shirt, bandages and sling off, the only thing she had left on was her panties. Dawn started undressing, but only stripped down to her panties and bra. When Buffy asked her what she was doing, Dawn staunchly declared that she knew Spike was around someplace and there was no way she was getting naked in front of him. Buffy thought this was hilariously funny for some reason and couldn't stop laughing about it until Dawn made sure that she got soap into her mouth while washing her hair. Buffy threatened vengeance, but they both laughed.

Once Buffy was all cleaned up, Dawn helped her dry off and then had her sit in a chair while she dried her hair, then combed it out. Dawn had nearly gotten as wet as Buffy during the whole shower thing, so once she had dried Buffy off, Dawn went to the bag with her cloths in it and got out a dry bra and panties. As she started to walk into the bathroom to put them on Buffy started laughing again. When Dawn asked her why she was laughing, Buffy reminded her that since she couldn't see Spike how would she know that he wasn't in the bathroom with her watching her change. Dawn didn't even hesitate with her answer. She told Buffy that Spike would never do something so rude to her.

When Dawn was dressed again she got Buffy back into a pair of panties and another button up shirt. She then tied the sling around her neck and made sure it was adjusted right for her. She then stripped and remade the bed and helped Buffy get back into it. The truth of the matter was that Buffy didn't really need all the help that Dawn was giving to her now, but she realized that Dawn wanted, needed, to help her, so she let her.

When Buffy was settled in bed with Dawn sitting up tight against her hip, they started a strange three-way conversation between Buffy, Spike and Dawn. Dawn would speak directly to Spike, but Buffy had to tell her his answers. Dawn also listened to Buffy speaking to Spike and then listened to Buffy tell her what Spike had said to her. Over the period of an hour or so, with numerous pauses for tears. Spike had explained that wherever he was time seemed to move differently. That when he had first arrived he had been in a lot of emotional turmoil and that it had taken him a long time, he didn't know how much, for him to finally find enough inner peace to start thinking clearly. It was the visit from his mothers spirit, in heaven, that had finally brought him some peace.

He'd explained that although he was finding this peace within himself, the one thing he wasn't able to do was to release his longing to be with Buffy. To see her one more time, to be with her, to touch her again. Spike had explained that it was his love for Buffy that had prevented him from going on to heaven. Because for Spike there was no heaven without Buffy. That was when he started getting visits from Tara and their Mom, plus the spirits of others that had helped him. He admitted that at first the spirits had tried to calm him and convince him that he needed to let himself 'be happy' and to 'move on' to heaven. But the thought of 'moving on' without Buffy made the idea of 'being happy' painful to his soul.

He told them that it was during this time, which seemed like years to him, that his need to be with Buffy allowed him to first breach the barrier where he was and see Buffy. That seeing her in pain, and what she was going through, just made his need to be with her grow stronger. That he had been trying for the longest time to reach her, to find a way to soothe her pain and torment. That eventually he had been able to break through, but only when Buffy was drunk and her need for him matched his own for her. How he had been coming to her as a voiceless vision, until she was injured. How it was both Buffys physical pain and her emotional need for him that had finally made it possible for him to come through the barrier, for a short period of time, and for her to hear him when he spoke to her. How it was Buffy saying that she 'loved him' and 'needed him' that had strengthened the tie between them and had made it possible for him to come to her and be with her for longer periods of time.

Spike explained that it was then that Tara came to him again and told him that there might be a way for him to come back into the living world and to be with Buffy again. She had also told him that it would require a white witch or sorcerer at least as powerful as Willow to cast the spell, and that it would require the efforts of a number of people who truly wanted Spike to return. Spike told them that Tara had promised to reveal the spell to him when the time was right, but it would be up to those who loved him to find enough people that knew Spike, and wanted his return, to make the spell work.

It was at this point that the apartment door opened and Willow entered. Seeing Willow, it was easy for both Dawn and Buffy to notice that she had a sort of sad/happy, wistful, smile on her face. Noticing that both Buffy and Dawn were looking at her with questions clearly on the tips of their tongues, Willow walked over to the bed to be near them. Without waiting for them to say anything, Willow spoke first. "I believe in Spike. I believe in his love for Buffy and I believe in her love for him." A look of sorrow slipped down over her face as she continued. "I'm sorry, Buffy. I know that that isn't enough, but I truly am sorry. I know you don't trust me anymore, and that we might never be friends again, but if there is anyway that I can prove to you how sorry I am I'm more than willing to try. Please believe me, I know that what I did was wrong, but I never intended to hurt you. I love you, Buffy, I always will."

By the time Willow stopped speaking tears were in her eyes. Dawn got up off the bed and wrapped her arms around Willow in a hug to sooth her. When Willow finally lifted her face from where she had been crying into Dawn shoulder and looked over at Buffy, as if looking for judgment, she could see that Buffy had a few tears in her own eyes, but she was also smiling. Stepping back from Dawn, Willow reached up and wiped the last of her tears away with her fingers, then returned Buffys smile tentatively. Then of it's own the smile got bigger and spread across her face and shown out from her eyes. "Oh, and I have a date, tomorrow, for coffee!"

Dawn couldn't control herself and started giggling. Spike apparently said something to Buffy and she started laughing and tried to stop herself by covering her mouth with her hand. Willow blushed a nice shade of pink, but the smile stayed on her lips. Then both Buffy and Dawn congratulated her and Dawn gave her a hug while Buffy smiled at her.

Not wanting to let an opportunity slip by, Dawn immediately asked Willow if she had meant what she said about being willing to do anything to prove how sorry she was for her part in hurting both Buffy and Spike. When Willow looked Buffy directly in the eyes and said she had meant it, both Buffy and Dawn looked at each other and nodded their heads to each other. For the next half hour Dawn and Buffy recapped everything that Spike had told them. Which brought them all in the end to looking at each other as they tried to come up with names of people who knew Spike and might be willing to help bring him back to this reality.

Willow was the first to suggest Giles. Buffy had doubts, but Willow assured her that Giles would do anything for Buffy, if it would make her happy, if it might earn her forgiveness. Dawn was a little more hesitant, but she agreed that Willow might be right about Giles. She told Willow not to say anything to Giles just yet, because she wanted to check out his change of attitude for herself, but if he had changed then it would be good to have his help.

Dawn was the one who suggested Andrew. She told Buffy, and Spike, that she was certain that Andrew would want to help bring Spike back to this world. Spike agreed, through Buffy, that he thought that Andrew had never intended to bring harm to Buffy or him and would be willing to help.

Willow next suggested Faith. Seeing the frown that crossed Buffys face, Willow said that she was as certain of Faith's willingness to help as Dawn was of Andrews. She admitted that she wasn't certain of Robin being as willing to help. With the history between him and Spike he might not want to help. But Faith would do it, even if she had to go against Robin's wishes, because she felt she owed it to both Buffy and to Spike.

Speaking of Faith brought up the idea of seeking help from some of the other slayers; Vi, Rona, Ruth, maybe a few of the others that Spike had worked closely with when he was helping to train the Potentials. No one, not even Willow, suggested the possibility of Kennedy. Her dislike of all things Spike, even after he'd saved her life and the world, was known to all of them.

Which brought them to the last two names that all of them could think of, but were reluctant to mention, Xander and Angel. When Dawn threw out their names after a long uncomfortable silence, Buffy just shook her head in the negative. Buffy stated forcefully that Xander hated Spike and would never want to help, and that Angel hated Spike even more and was the reason Spike was dead in the first place. Willow and Dawn didn't say anything at first, partly because they couldn't refute what Buffy had said, and partly because they could see that Buffy was listening to Spike as he spoke to her. Buffy kept shaking her head as she listened to Spike, but eventually he must have said something to make her hesitate.

Looking over at both Dawn and Willow, Buffy pulled her anger back and let out a long sigh. "Spike said that he agrees with me about Xander. That unless 'the bloody whelp' has undergone a world shaking change of heart and mind, he'd never help out." By the look on Buffys face Dawn and Willow could see the reluctance on her face to continue, but she did it anyway. "Spike says that I might be wrong about Angel though. He says that he and Angel had moved on to an understanding between them, shortly before the final fight. He says that he and Angel would probably never be 'best friends', but with Angel being 'family' of a sort, having his help might be important to getting him back."

Dawn, and then Willow, both promised that they wouldn't contact Xander or tell him anything about the situation with Spike or his need for help. Willow told Buffy that since Xander had gone back to Africa she only heard from him occasionally by email. That he never brought up the topic's of Buffy or Spike, and only wrote to her about his travels and the slayers he was sent out to find for the Council, and that Buffy or Dawn could read his emails to her to verify she was telling them the truth. Buffy told Willow that she believed her, but she didn't want Xander to know anything because he might decide to work against their efforts to bring Spike back in some way.

Dawn next promised that they wouldn't tell Angel anything either, at least until after Dawn had a chance to check him out and find out where his head was at regarding his feelings toward Spike. Buffy barked out a sharp short laugh after that, then told them that Spike had just said that "Angel probably still had 'his head up his arse', but that still didn't mean he wouldn't help out."

Willow volunteered to call Faith and feel her out to see what her attitude was concerning Spike and to see what Faith would say about Robin's attitude. If things went well on that front she would then start contacting some of the other slayers next. Dawn insisted that she be the one to contact Giles and Andrew. She wanted to be the one to talk to Andrew because she felt that he would be open with her and tell her the truth. She wanted to be the one to work things out with Giles because of her initial work with him and the test she gave him. She told them all about the fifteen pages of text she'd worked on all morning regarding what Giles and the others had done to Buffy. She had definite plans to send a copy to Giles and see how he reacted to it. If he reacted in the way she hoped he would, she would then call him and talk to him directly.

Speaking of her test and the document that she had typed up, Dawn went over to Willows computer and hooked up the small travel printer that Willow had in her computer case, checked that there was enough paper, and started printing out two copies of the document for Buffy and Willow to read. While the document was printing out she reopened her email program. Checking her watch and seeing it was almost 6 PM her time, she realized that it was over five hours since the last time she checked for messages from Giles. Going through the email, checking for the time stamp on each of them, she found that the last message containing the 'Buffy loves Spike' message had been sent at 00:34 AM, London time. Calculating the time that Giles had spent on the test, from approximately 7:30 AM to 12:30 AM, that was seventeen hours. There was one other email in her queue from Giles that she needed to open. The time stamp on it was 01:04 AM, London time.

My Dearest Dawn,

As you can see I have completed the test you have assigned to me. I feel that I must tell you that in the beginning of your test I could not understand what it was going to accomplish for me to type out a thousand times that "Buffy loves Spike". But seeing that this might be my only chance to mend my relationship with you, and hopefully with Buffy at some point in time, I started on the task immediately. As you can see, the task took much longer than I ever anticipated that it might. But then again, on reflection, I feel that the amount of time that it took to take your test might very well have been what you meant in your original message when you said "I'll know" if I did not take the test the way you required of me. Now, the test is completed, the final batch has already been sent to you. I await your decision as to whether, or not, I have passed.

Please, allow me to add, although I "do not know" what the test I have taken was intended to show or prove, I can tell you of the effect it has had on me. 

The first two hundred repetitions of the message seemed to bring to the surface a level of irritation I was unprepared for and had me thinking that this test of yours was superfluous and a waste of time. But, because I wanted to do what you asked of me, I continued on with the task. By near noon I had completed half of the task and was in such a turmoil of agitation that I was unconscionably rude to my secretary and found myself in the position of needing to apologize to her for my behavior.

The next half of the test; through three pots of tea, a half bottle of scotch, and a full pack of cigarettes that I briefly slipped out to a local kiosk to purchase, took twelve more hours to complete. I will tell you now that a goodly portion of that time was spent searching my conscience, cursing myself for being a fool, and literally crying over decisions made in the past that are regrettably unchangeable.

I feel that at this moment that I must say "I'm sorry", to Buffy without doubt, but even more so to Spike. Over my life I have been in several relationships, but only once can I truly say that "I was in love". That love was taken from me by Angelus and the pain I felt due to that loss made me feel at that time that I would surely die. When Angel returned from the hell dimension she sent him to, Buffy insisted that I not blame Angel for the actions of Angelus. I promised, I tried, but deep down in my heart I was never able to do so with any lasting success. I believe, I am certain, that it was my anger and distrust of Angel that carried over to Spike. I never once gave him a benefit of doubt, I prejudged him and always found him guilty. For this alone "I am truly sorry".

When Buffy "died" the pain of her loss was overwhelming. Through out that summer my grief over her loss grew greater with every passing day. I was a witness to the grief of the rest of you, You, Willow and Tara, Xander and Anya, but the one who's grief that I refused to see, or accept, was Spikes. For that I shall ever be ashamed. I believe now that the reason that I could not except his grief was that to except his grief I would have to also except that Spike had truly loved Buffy. That he had loved Buffy just as much and just as completely as I had loved my own true love, as much as I had love Buffy myself.

I also believe that this is why I could not, would not, allow myself to believe that the grief that Buffy suffered after Spikes demise at the Hellmouth was anything more than 'survivors guilt'. I could not, would not, let myself believe that what Buffy was going through was 'true grief', because to do so I would also have had to admit to myself that Buffy had also felt 'true love' for Spike. When I learned of Spikes resurrection, and that he had joined forces with Angel at Wolfram & Hart, it was easy enough for me to convince myself that I needed to 'protect' Buffy from this knowledge.

Dawn, please understand that I am no longer trying to excuse my behavior, to you or to Buffy, I am only telling you what I am thinking and feeling at this moment in time. I wrote to Willow not long ago that "every night I pray that someday both you and Buffy will forgive me". I believe that I shall now be adding Spikes name to my prayers, asking that he might also "forgive me".

I will end now, please forgive my rambling disclosures. I will await your decision regarding your test. Please believe that whether or not I have passed your test, I have learned something from the process. 

Most Sincerely, and with Love

Giles.

Dawn read through Giles letter three times before she responded. Opening a new email window, she typed out a response.

Giles,

I've read your letter, three times. Forgiveness is 'yet' a hard thing to do, but 'understanding' is something I'm trying to do.

I am attaching a text document to this letter that is quite long. I would like for you to print it out and read it carefully.

Please, do not email or try to call me about the document. Read it, think about it. I will call you Saturday morning, my time, and we will discuss it then.

Dawn

P.S. - This may surprise you, but when it comes to "forgiveness", Spike would probably be the first one to give it to you.

P.P.S - I may not always "like" you, but I will always "love" you.

Dawn thought about her 'post scripts' for a few moments and decided that she was satisfied with what she'd written. She then attached her text document to the email to Giles and sent it on it's way. The printer had finished printing out her text document by then so she printed out Giles email to her and her response back to him. Collecting all the sheets of paper together she got up from where she'd been sitting on the floor and carried them over to Buffys bed.

While Dawn had been printing out her document, reading Giles email and responding to it, Willow had been talking to Buffy and Spike about the test that Dawn had been giving to both her and Giles. Dawn had mentioned her subliminal message test to Buffy earlier, but Buffy hadn't really understood it. Willow had been telling Buffy more about it, at least telling what she understood about it herself. She had also admitted that it hadn't been until this very morning that she had finally understood how the test had been working on her at a subconscious level for the past week. She had just finished apologizing to Buffy and Spike, again, when Dawn rejoined them.

Standing at the foot of the bed Dawn sorted the copies out into two piles. Gathering one up in each hand she offered one to Willow. Speaking in a calm and business like manner, Dawn told Willow, "I want you to read this and think about what I've written. You might not like what I have to say, but it's how I feel, and for the most part I think it's how Buffy feels too. After your finished, when your ready, we can talk about it." Willow accepted the papers from Dawn and not making any comment carried them over to the couch, sat down and started reading.

Dawn then held out the other stack of papers to Buffy. With an almost hesitant look on her face she started talking. "I know that this is kind of long, but I really think you should read it. Like I told Will, it's how I feel, and I think that you might agree with most of it. If you don't agree, let me know, talk to me about it, because it's important, to both of us. You might want to read the email from Giles first, and what I wrote back to him, before you read the things that I wrote. While your doing that, I'm going to start things moving and send a message to Andrew." Dawn waited for Buffy to accept the papers from her and turning away quickly walked over to the computer and sat down on the floor in front of it.

Dawn spent a few minutes time avoiding looking at either Willow or Buffy by searching her email program for Andrews email address. Finding it, she opened a new email window, then paused as she tried to think of what she wanted to say to Andrew.

Looking up she watched Willow reading what she had written for a couple of minutes. Willow was unaware of Dawn watching her because she was giving the document her full attention. She was reading, underlining some sentences with either red or green ink pens, highlighting other parts, and writing notes in the margins. She was giving Dawns missive the same attention she would give to a text book or study notes, the same attention she would give if she was studying for an important test. Which in some ways was true.

Looking over at Buffy, Dawn could see that she had turned sideways in her bed, sitting lotus fashion, and was holding the pages she was reading in a way so that Spike could read over her shoulder. Watching, Dawn could see and hear Buffy talking quietly to Spike, and by the tilt of her head, Dawn could tell that Buffy was listening to Spike as he responded. She could also tell by the look on Buffys face that she was giving serious thought to what she was reading.

Seeing that both Willow and Buffy were taking what she'd written seriously made Dawn feel a lot better. She'd spent several hours that morning writing it, but she'd spent months thinking about what she'd written.

Turning back to the computer, Dawn started writing to Andrew.

Hey, Nerd Boy. 

I think it's time for us to have a serious talk. …

(06/08/06)

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